List of Illustrations
Preface
Why Should We Care?
Singapores Periodic Crises
How Has It Happened?
I. Origins
Sea People
Earliest "Singapore"
The Hinge of Eurasia
The Chinese, the Sea, and Southeast Asia
Chinas Seafaring Culture Hero
II. Wings of Canvas
Northern Europe Follows the Atlantic Others
British Triumph in Asian Waters
Birth Trauma for Singapore
III. "Queen of the Further East"
The Lure of Singapore
"Chinatown"
Chinese and Britons
Opium and Empire
China on Ebb Tide
Pulsating Port
IV. Empire at Zenith
"The Dirty Ditch"
A Kra Canal?
Wiring the World
Singapore's Advantage
The Port Responds
Tin Mines and Tin Cans
Rubber Startles the World
Plying the Coast
Blue Water Highways
Globetrotters
Coolies
A Cosmopolitan Culture
"Great Possibilities"
V. Clouds, Thunder, and Storm, 1918-42
Oil Emerges
A Privileged Colonial World
Enter the Japanese
Apprehension Grows
"Battleship without a Bottom"
"The Worst Day of the War"
Rip Current for the Allies
"Lambs at Home, Devils Outside"
Voyage of Netaji
The Rising Sun Sets
VI. "Walking on a Razors Edge," 1945-65
Painful Recovery and Push for Freedom
Singapore's "Men in White" Displace Colonial Overlords
Struggling for New Order
Defining an Economy
"Might Well Start Rowing"
VII. "Turfed Out"
Goh Builds Jurong
"Strategic Pragmatism"
A New Schoolhouse
Lion of the Lion City
Embracing Oceanic Revolution
Goodbye to Great Britain
A new City Emerges
VIII. Coming to the Present
Preserving the Environment
Hydro Hub
Looming Threats?
"Brain Services"
Polishing Society
"Asian" Values
The Singapore Grip
Out of Bounds
The Voice of the Internet
IX. Global Hinge?
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
Index
