Lion City
Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A compelling, illuminating and evocative history of Singapore—the world's most successful city-state.
In 1965, Singapore's GDP per capita was on a par with Jordan. Now it has outstripped Japan. After the Second World War and a sudden rupture with newly formed Malaysia, Singapore found itself independent - and facing a crisis. It took the bloody-minded determination and vision of Lee Kuan Yew, its founding premier, to take a small island of diverse ethnic groups with a fragile economy and hostile neighbours and meld it into Asia's first globalised city.
Lion City examines the different faces of Singaporean life - from education and health to art, politics and demographic challenges - and reveals how in just half a century, Lee forged a country with a buoyant economy and distinctive identity. It explores the darker side of how this was achieved too; through authoritarian control that led to it being dubbed 'Disneyland with the death penalty'.
Jeevan Vasagar, former Singapore correspondent for the Financial Times, masterfully takes us through the intricate history, present and future of this unique diamond-shaped island one degree north of the equator, where new and old have remained connected. Lion City is a personal, insightful and definitive guide to the city, and how its extraordinary rise is shaping East Asia and the rest of the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Vasagar debuts with a well-informed if somewhat dry history of Singapore from the establishment of a British settlement on the island in 1819 to today. Spotlighting the interplay between Singapore's political and economic systems ("authoritarianism with Gucci handbags"), Vasagar contends that Singaporeans tolerate a high degree of government control because the city-state's political elites take their work seriously and deliver positive results. He documents the life and career of prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, who led Singapore from 1965 (the year it separated from Malaysia and became a sovereign city-state) until 1990, highlighting how Lee's policies—including the preservation of memorials to colonial ruler Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and the racial profiling of migrants "to maintain an ethnic balance in which Chinese make up the majority"—enacted his vision of Singapore as a hybrid of Eastern and Western cultures. Turning to contemporary matters, Vasagar details the government's stifling of political dissent, the military's role in instilling national solidarity, and cultural attitudes toward drugs, prostitution, and gambling. Though it's somewhat lacking in analysis, Vasagar presents a brisk yet comprehensive overview of Singapore's evolution and adds nuance to Western perceptions of the island as an "iron-fisted wonderland." Readers seeking to understand modern Asia will be rewarded.
