Ten years ago, on July 2nd 1997, Thailand's central bank floated the baht after failing to protect the currency from speculative attack. The move triggered a financial and economic collapse that quickly spread to other economies in the region, causing GDP growth rates to contract precipitously, bankrupting companies that had overexposed themselves to foreign-currency risk, and ultimately necessitating costly and politically humiliating IMF-led bailouts in the worst-affected countries. Thus began the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Its effects, and governments' subsequent responses to it, have defined much of the region's economic policies and direction in the past decade. What has been learnt, and how has the region changed in the intervening period?