Customer Reviews

The Economic Growth of Singapore: Trade and Development in the Twentieth Century

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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A fine book, one that give a rich understanding of what happened and why.

Sure, Lee Kuan-yiow transformed the situation. However, it is easy to overlook that Singapore was more than just a bastion of British might, even usurping the Sumatra rubber burning industry as it was more efficient than the Dutch efforts, despite desires of the Dutch to keep that money maker inside its borders. Therefore Singapore was basing a good part of its well being in the early part of this century upon the lack of industry on the Dutch side, mainly because it was a modern city hub of the region at that time and one that provided stable reinvestment.

Other examples are given, like the industrial machining might developing about 1930 because it was the next logical step.

All that was needed was for multinationals to give them the steady workload as they had already done most of the jobs before (as was the case industrial wise in Japan, Germany, and similar countries after WWII, the people's skill was the primary mover).

It may seem like a small issue, but it destroys the myth of Singapore being a backwater and bodes ill for any country trying to rise up in short order from absolutely nothing (no examples of such, actually, in modern times, though Australia & N.Z. come closest from the periods of 1787-1900 & 1830-1900). It is interesting that in those cases as was similar with Singapore & Hong Kong, migration of an industrious population was the keystone, beyond natural resources.)

There are many texts about the development of Singapore from when it achieved self-government in 1959. This book does not try to compete with them. Instead, most of it deals with the period between about 1869, with the opening of the Suez Canal, and 1959. Much of the analysis about the early period contradict popular mythology about Singapore -- the country was not backwards and poor when it became independent; in fact, it had a GDP per capital about 1/3 that of the U.K. This book describes how this came to be the case.

It also discusses the more recent period, but the material there is similar to what is available elsewhere. The five stars I'm giving the book are for the earlier chapters.

I have heard representatives of third world nations describe their development plans as being "Singapore like," meaning that they plan to rocket from poverty into selling intellectual and financial services in a short period of time. I wish more of them understood the special circumstances that allowed Singapore to make the leap, and the length of time that it really took. This book is valuable for anybody considering similar problems.