Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia
Jeevan Vasagar
Little, Brown: 2021
.
In Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia, Jeevan Vasagar presents a history of modern Singapore, tracing the island’s journey from British colonial trading post to today’s famously wealthy and orderly nation state, and offering reflections on the country’s road ahead. Vasagar’s perspectives reflect his former years as Singapore correspondent for the Financial Times, an experience that placed him among an increasingly significant population of temporary workers in Singapore. Even after a slight pandemic drop, 1.5 of its 5.5 million inhabitants are ‘non-resident’, a classification that spans a huge range in wealth and status, from cleaners, builders and care workers to well-heeled executives in blue chips, technology and finance..

White collar expats seem to be Lion City’s target audience. For someone who knows little about Singapore, the book would probably be an enjoyable and broadly informative crash course—more than a tourist guide, less than an academic investigation. The author’s newsroom roots show strongly, with impressions and events recounted in a readable and vivid style. At the same time, the arguments are in places scattershot. Approaches that might work for scarce newspaper inches look oddly unfinished in a book, and on occasion, Vasagar is not careful enough in checking that his trees and his forests tally.

• Tags: Issue 26, Jeevan Vasagar, Jolene Tan, Singapore