Water Frontier focuses principally on southwest Indochina (from modern southern Vietnam into eastern Cambodia and southwestern Thailand), which it calls the Lower Mekong region. The book's excellent contributors argue that, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this area formed a single trading zone woven together by the regular itineraries of thousands of large and small junk traders. This zone in turn formed a regional component of the wider trade networks that linked southern China to all of Southeast Asia. This is the "water frontier" of the title, a sparsely settled coastal and riverine frontier region of mixed ethnicities and often uncertain settlements in which the waterborne trade and commerce of a long string of small ports was essential to local life. This innovative book uses the water frontier concept to reposition old nation-state oriented histories and decenter modern dominant cultures and ethnicities to reveal a different local past. It expands and deepens our understanding of the time and place as well as of the multiple roles played by Chinese sojourners, settlers, and junk traders in their interactions with a kaleidoscope of local peoples.

This volume examines Singaporea (TM)s culture of control, exploring the city-statea (TM)s colonial heritage as well as the forces that have helped to mould its current social landscape. Taking a comparative approach, Trocki demonstrates the links between Singaporea (TM)s colonial past and independent present, focusing on the development of indigenous social and political movements. In particular, the book examines the efforts of Lee Yew Kuan, leader of the Peoplea (TM)s Action Party from 1959 until 1990, to produce major economic and social transformation. Trocki discusses how Singapore became a workers paradise, but what the city gained in material advancement it paid for in intellectual and cultural sterility.

Based on the latest research, Singapore addresses the question of control in one of the most prosperous and dynamic economies in the world, providing a compelling history of post-colonial Singapore.

This volume examines Singapore's culture of control, exploring the city-state's colonial heritage as well as the forces that have helped to mould its current social landscape. Taking a comparative approach, Trocki demonstrates the links between Singapore's colonial past and independent present, focusing on the development of indigenous social and political movements. In particular, the book examines the efforts of Lee Yew Kuan, leader of the People's Action Party from 1959 until 1990, to produce major economic and social transformation. Trocki discusses how Singapore became a workers paradise, but what the city gained in material advancement it paid for in intellectual and cultural sterility. Based on the latest research, Singapore addresses the question of control in one of the most prosperous and dynamic economies in the world, providing a compelling history of post-colonial Singapore.

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.

An essay collection that studies workaday, regional politics in Southeast Asia and its implications for evolving democracies. The contributors examine the electoral process, conflicts between central and local governments, conflicts between individual freedoms and state power, and the roles charismatic, opportunistic strongmen have played in Southeast Asian politics, most notably in Thailand, Burma, and the Philippines.

Singapore's era of pluralism between the 1950s and 1970s was a time of extraordinary cultural, intellectual and political dynamism. Students, labour unions, ambitious political contenders, and representatives of the various ethnic communities all stepped forward to offer alternate visions of Singapore's future from across the entire political spectrum. They generated a ferment of ideologies, priorities, perspectives and social visions such as mainstream 'official' Singapore politics had never known before and has not seen since.Post WWII Singapore history generally follows a central theme of progress to establish the PAP political, economic and social model. Alternatives receive cursory treatment as problems, false starts, or difficulties to be overcome. This book reveals a more complex situation that involved a much larger cast of significant players, and gives due weight to the middle years of the twentieth century as a period that offered real alternatives, rather than a chaotic age before the dawn.The book will remind older Singaporeans of pages from their past, and will provide a younger generation with a novel perspective at their country's past struggles. For outside observers, it offers a fascinating glimpse of a side of Singapore that has received relatively little attention.