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Rather than presenting another narrative of Singapore history, The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts studies the constructed nature of the history endorsed by the state, which blurs the distinction between what happened in the past, and how the state intends that past to be understood. The People's Action Party (PAP) government's unbroken mandate to rule has come in no small part from the way it explains its lineage and record to Singaporeans. The power vested in various aspects of Singapore's history is thus examined through a consideration of past and present politics. The authors trace state discourses on Singapore history from the decision immediately after indepen...
Oral History is a means of recording the past, through interviews. There has been much oral history activity in Southeast Asia since the 1960s at both the institutional and individual levels. This volume contains a range of papers dealing with the theoretical, methodological and practical issues in oral history and the unique problems of their application in the Southeast Asian context. The authors include both academics and practitioners who bring with them a wealth of expertise and experience in anthropology, history, sociology, publishing and archives administration.
"e;Revisionist"e; or "e;alternative"e; historians have increasingly questioned elements of the Singapore Story - the master narrative of the nation's political and socioeconomic development since its founding by the British in 1819. Much criticism focuses especially on one defining episode of the Story: the internal security dragnet mounted on 2 February 1963 against Communist United Front elements on the island, known to posterity as Operation Coldstore. The revisionists claim that Coldstore was mounted for political rather than security reasons and actually destroyed a legitimate Progressive Left opposition - personalized by the charismatic figure of Lim Chin Siong - rather than a dangerous Communist network as the conventional wisdom holds. Relying on both declassified and some previously unseen classified sources, this book challenges revisionist claims, reiterating the historic importance of Coldstore in helping pave the way for Singapore's remarkable journey from Third World status to First in a single generation.
Nationalism and Decolonisation in Singapore analyses Singapore’s decolonisation movement between 1953 and 1963 and provides a framework to understand the deepest and most important unresolved conflicts in Singaporean society. This book demonstrates how these conflicts stem from four unresolved schisms dating from the decolonisation period: race, class, language, and the meaning of self-determination. The author argues that these schisms drove the events of decolonisation, the creation of Malaysia, and Singapore’s separation and continue to actively shape Singapore today. Using contemporary English- and Chinese-language sources from a wide array of perspectives, as well as numerous declas...
In 1958, more than a hundred thousand people attended the inauguration ceremony of Nanyang University (Nantah), a true “people’s university” that was founded with the support of all strata of society, from tycoons to trishaw-men. After producing 12,000 graduates and winning global recognition, the institution, the first Chinese-medium university outside China, held her final convocation in 1980. Drawing from the author’s own research and diverse sources that have never before been available in English, this book tells the fascinating story of Nantah’s short and eventful life and deconstructs the many myths and misconceptions that continue to surround her. *Errata — Mr Lee Hsien L...
C.M. (Mary) Turnbull's contributions to historical writing on Singapore extended from her 1962 thesis, published in 1972 as "The Straits Settlements, 1826-1867: Indian Presidency to Crown Colony", to her magisterial history of Singapore, first published in 1977 and re-issued in 2009 in an updated edition as A History of Singapore, 1819-2005. Her approach to history involved detailed work with documents and published materials, with a particular focus on political and economic history. One contributor to the present volume described the book as an "exercise in endowing a modern 'nation-state' with a coherent past that should explain the present." As styles in history evolved, younger scholars...
Noting that the modern perception of slavery is so colored by the American experience that people tend not to see other forms, eight essays describe the servile institutions in Asia and Africa during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the examples are the Ottoman Empire, Thailand, the Gulf of Guinea, and Senegal. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This book is an historical account of India's relations with Singapore, which have reached a new peak today. It highlights several turning points in that relationship: the role of Bengal in Sir Stamford Raffles's decision to set up a base in Singapore; the contribution of Indian labour to the construction of Singapore; the Singapore Mutiny of 1915; Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's arrival in wartime Singapore and the revitalization of the Indian National Army; independent Singapore's early relations with India; the dramatic breakthrough in ties created by India's Look East policy following the end of the Cold War; and the arrival of global Indians in Singapore.
The role of ethnic Chinese business in Southeast Asia in catalyzing economic development has been hotly debated - and often misunderstood - throughout cycles of boom and bust. This book critically examines some of the key features attributed to Chinese business: business-government relations, the family firm, trust and networks, and supposed 'Asian' values. The in-depth case studies that feature in the book reveal considerable diversity among these firms and the economic and political networks in which they manoeuvre. With contributions from leading scholars and under the impressive editorship of Jomo and Folk, Ethnic Business is a well-written, important contribution to not only students of Asian business and economics, but also professionals with an interest in those areas.
In World Trade Systems of the East and West, Geoffrey C. Gunn profiles Nagasaki's historic role in mediating the Japanese bullion trade, especially silver exchanged against Chinese and Vietnamese silk. Founded in 1571 as the terminal port of the Portuguese Macau ships, Nagasaki served as Japan's window to the world over long time and with the East-West trade carried on by the Dutch and, with even more vigor, by the Chinese junk trade. While the final expulsion of the Portuguese in 1646 characteristically defines the “closed” period of early modern Japanese history, the real trade seclusion policy, this work argues, only came into place one century later when the Shogunate firmly grasped the true impact of the bullion trade upon the national economy.