Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia

by Jeevan Vasagar

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643139340
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	03/01/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	976,616
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Jeevan Vasagar is the former Singapore and Malaysia correspondent for the Financial Times. He travelled the region to report on demands for political reform, the rise of digital businesses and the growing influence of China. He is now Environment Editor for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, based in London. Prior to joining the FT, he reported for the Guardian for twelve years, including spells as east Africa correspondent and education editor. Lion City is his first book.
He can be found on Twitter: @jeevanvasagar

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Emporium of the East 21

2 'Blood will flow' 46

3 The Engineered Society 65

4 The Singapore Dream 84

5 The Model City 104

6 Authoritarianism with Gucci Handbags 125

7 Fighting Disease: From TB to Covid-19 150

8 'No one owes Singapore a living' 165

9 Taming the Internet 182

10 Singapore Inc 196

11 Asian Values 214

12 The Art of Resistance 232

13 Sin City 247

14 The Demographic Challenge 263

15 The Future 279

Epilogue 291

Acknowledgements 297

Endnotes 299

Further reading 315

Index 317

Editorial Reviews

01/10/2022

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. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2021-12-24
A comprehensive look at the sleek city-state that strongman Lee Kuan Yew forged into a model society of authority and order.

In his first book, Vasagar, former Singapore and Malaysia correspondent for the Financial Times, fashions an engaging narrative that is both historical and personal; his father lived in Singapore, and the author often visited as a child. Vasagar notes that in order to understand the “forest of glass and steel” that Singapore has become in recent decades, one must grasp both its colonial and breakaway history. Today, he writes, “Singapore is not just a centre of modern Asia…but something bigger—an Asian city state around which the modern world, seeking illumination, revolves.” Established as a British settlement in 1819 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, it is one of the few places in the world where colonial statues still stand and its British founding is still celebrated. The author delineates the city’s remarkable geography and history, including its occupation by the Japanese in 1942 (it was returned to Britain at the end of World War II). That tumult shaped future leader Lee’s worldview. He was repulsed by the barbarism of the Japanese occupier,” writes Vasagar, “but quietly admired the rarity of crime under Japanese rule.” The author chronicles the communist insurgency against the British in the 1950s and the merger with Malaya, which ended in 1965 when Singapore became a sovereign island nation with Lee at the helm. Over the next decades, Lee pursued “a mix of coercion and cajoling” for both business and society, with an emphasis on meritocracy and fear of communism, and Vasagar insightfully examines the recent and current “ruling elite,” demonstrating their lack of tolerance for crime and squelching of free speech. Among the other “Asian tigers”—South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong—Singapore is held up as a great economic success but often at the cost of personal liberty.

An accessible, ground-up journalistic study well suited to those who know little about this enigmatic republic.

Kirkus Reviews