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 declassified official documents, this book provides a new approach to the most formative period of Singapore history. It explains in detail the different ideologies, institutions, and conflicts which shaped Singaporean politics and society during decolonisation. In particular, the book focuses on the leaders of the main groups which most heavily influenced Singapore’s anti-colonial nationalism – the Chinesespeaking, the working class, and left-wing intellectuals. It looks at Singapore in the context of global movements of nationalism, socialism, and decolonisation and provides a framework which can offer insight into similar attempts by postcolonial governments to construct new nation-states from plural societies. A novel study of Singapore’s independence struggle that incorporates and analyses multiple linguistic, socioeconomic, and political viewpoints, the book will be of interest to researchers of Southeast Asian history and politics and those interested in decolonisation, nationalism, identity, and the politics of race, class, and language.

This text explains British defence policy by examining the overlapping of colonial, military, economic and Cold War factors in Southeast Asia.

This important overview explores the connections between Singapore's past with historical developments worldwide until present day. The contributors analyse Singapore as a city-state seeking to provide an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of the global dimensions contributing to Singapore's growth. The book's global perspective demonstrates that many of the discussions of Singapore as a city-state have relevance and implications beyond Singapore to include Southeast Asia and the world. This vital volume should not be missed by economists, as well as those interested in imperial histor.

Why did independent Singapore celebrate two hundred years of its founding as a British colony in 2019? What does Merdeka mean for Singaporeans? And what are the possibilities of doing decolonial history in Singapore? Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History presents essays by historians, literary scholars and artists which grapple with these questions. The volume also reproduces some of the source material used in the play Merdeka / 獨立 / சுதந்திரம் (Wild Rice, 2019). Taken together, the book shows how the contradictions of independent nationhood haunt Singaporeans' collective and personal stories about Merdeka. It points to the need for a Merdeka history: an open and fearless culture of historical reckoning that not only untangles us from colonial narratives, but proposes emancipatory possibilities.

The end of colonial rule in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean was one of the most important and dramatic developments of the twentieth century. In the decades after World War II, dozens of new states emerged as actors in global politics. Long-established imperial regimes collapsed, some more or less peacefully, others amid mass violence. This book takes an incisive look at decolonization and its long-term consequences, revealing it to be a coherent yet multidimensional process at the heart of modern history. Jan Jansen and Jürgen Osterhammel trace the decline of European, American, and Japanese colonial supremacy from World War I to the 1990s. Providing a comparative perspective on the decolonization process, they shed light on its key aspects while taking into account the unique regional and imperial contexts in which it unfolded. Jansen and Osterhammel show how the seeds of decolonization were sown during the interwar period and argue that the geopolitical restructuring of the world was intrinsically connected to a sea change in the global normative order. They examine the economic repercussions of decolonization and its impact on international power structures, its consequences for envisioning world order, and the long shadow it continues to cast over new states and former colonial powers alike. Concise and authoritative, Decolonization is the essential introduction to this momentous chapter in history, the aftershocks of which are still being felt today. --

This examination of the formation of the Indonesian medical profession reveals the relationship between medicine and decolonisation, and its importance to understanding Asian history.

Providing the basis for a reconceptualization of key features in Southeast Asia's history, this book examines evolutionary patterns of Europe's and Japan's Southeast Asian empires from the late 19th century through to the 1960s.

This is the first book-length study of the ideological foundations of British imperialism in the early twentieth century by focussing on the heretofore understudied concept of imperial citizenship.

Singapore gained independence in 1965, a city-state in a world of nation-states. Yet its long and complex history reaches much farther back. Blending modernity and tradition, ideologies and ethnicities, a peculiar set of factors make Singapore what it is today. In this thematic study of the island nation, Michael D. Barr proposes a new approach to understand this development. From the pre-colonial period through to the modern day, he traces the idea, the politics and the geography of Singapore over five centuries of rich history. In doing so he rejects the official narrative of the so-called 'Singapore Story'. Drawing on in-depth archival work and oral histories, Singapore: A Modern History is a work both for students of the country's history and politics, but also for any reader seeking to engage with this enigmatic and vastly successful nation.

This innovative book is a pioneering study of political debate in an important Southeast Asian society. Now available in paperback it re-examines the formative period in Malay nationalism and argues against using nationalism as the paradigm of analysis.'This magnificent book is certainly essential reading for Malaysianists and Malaysians interested in the intrigues and mystique of Malay politics, in the past and at present.' Shamsul, A.B., Asian Studies Review'The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya is a model of its kind and will undoubtedly become a landmark in Malaysian studies and an example to those in other fields. It is a stylish and highly readable essay in cultural history.' William R Roff, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies