Singapore

摘要

Students of history and strategic studies will welcome the renewed availability of this classic study of the geographical, technological, and political forces which shaped the strategic importance of Singapore over the seven centuries prior to Britain's withdrawal of its military in 1971. The four authors have all taught or studied at the University of Singapore. John N. Miksic contributed the first four chapters, the first of which draws on archaeological evidence and scattered sources to sketch the centuries prior to the arrival of the British in 35 pages. The fact that Singapore had flourished as a commercial and political centre during the fourteenth century as described in the Malay Annak (1611) influenced Stamford Raffles' choice of the island as the site of a new British military and trading centre. The Dutch posed a threat to the new settlement until an 1824 treaty exchanged British interests in Sumatra for Dutch acceptance of Britain's development of the Malay Peninsula. Four chapters (two by Miksic and two by Chiang Ming Shun) focus on the construction of the island's defences and the impact of the shift from sail to steam power on its strategic position through the end of the First World War. During that conflict British officials had to call upon their then ally, Japan, to assist in subduing a mutiny by the Indian Army's 5th Light Infantry, a fact remembered by the Japanese and the people of Singapore, but soon forgotten by Britain.