Published Papers
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2018
Part of a special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History which explores the li... more Part of a special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History which explores the liberal ideals and realities of liberal British imperialism.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/121/5/1537.abstract
This response to Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis T... more http://ahr.oxfordjournals.org/content/121/5/1537.abstract
This response to Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy examines the scholarly merits of these novels as works of microhistory, in which the author’s devotion to what we might term “thick description” (following the anthropologist Clifford Geertz) produces numerous fresh understandings. It argues that the standout features of these novels are Ghosh’s re-creations of historical spaces and historical languages, both of which provide invaluable insights for scholars and students, who rarely have the available time and resources to recover the same degree of microscopic detail. In addition, this essay addresses Ghosh’s credentials as a historian who tackles broader historiographical concerns by comparing his depiction of the British imperial trades in indentured labor and opium with the arguments made by certain revisionist historians. It suggests that one weakness of Ghosh’s first installment in the Ibis Trilogy is his failure to read Victorian primary sources with a sufficiently critical eye. However, it concludes that overall Ghosh remains a historiographical torchbearer who over much of his career has explored the past connections and convergences of the Indian Ocean world well ahead of the academic curve.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Article in Past and Present
This article builds on a recent trend in the historiography of the... more Article in Past and Present
This article builds on a recent trend in the historiography of the British Empire, one which emphasises the multi-centred origins of ideologies, policies and social movements, to explore flows of humanitarian aid which emanated from Britain’s late-colonial Straits Settlements and then traversed the globe to reach Europe, the U.S., India, Persia, South Africa, China and Japan. It therefore challenges the Eurocentricism of recent, purportedly global, histories of the modern humanitarian movement, while reinforcing this movement’s close relationship with the history of international capital. Between 1870 and 1920, many leading humanitarian activists in the Straits Settlements were wealthy Chinese, Indian and Arab merchants, who along with their employees made up the principal donors during the charitable funds ‘craze’. In part, the humanitarian impulses of these activists derived from the alternative Asian universalisms being articulated by local Asian intellectuals at this time, with their well-publicized notions of ‘universal brotherhood’ and common humanity. At the same time, the Straits’ charitable funds ‘craze’ took on an undeniable pragmatic political character that was determined by the wider colonial context. Ultimately, overseas aid-giving became a field of action which bolstered the British Empire, yet offered Asian elites a space in which to contest the racial hierarchies which the Empire enforced and to demand new rights as imperial citizens
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The introduction to a Modern Asian Studies forum, 'Wartime globalization in Asia: conflicted con... more The introduction to a Modern Asian Studies forum, 'Wartime globalization in Asia: conflicted connections and convergences, 1937-45'.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
English Historical Review, 2016
http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/552/1043.abstract
This essay examines the historical r... more http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/131/552/1043.abstract
This essay examines the historical relationship between empire and information in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British Asia through a new examination of the imperial post. It argues that the creation of an Indian penny post in 1854 set in motion an information revolution which impacted regionally on literate and illiterate Indian subjects of the British Empire, on Indian publishers, and on colonial administrators. What historians have so far written about Britain’s imperial post has mostly presented it as an instrument of modern colonial state-building. When it has merited attention as an engine of social communication it has been mistakenly judged an outright failure. But as this essay argues, a study of the imperial post reveals Britain’s colonial state, within the wider context of a very illiberal British imperialism in Asia, trying to behave like a liberal one. While its desire for control and surveillance pulled it in one direction, Victorian notions of free trade, which in turn demanded an unrestricted circulation of information, pulled it in another. These contradictory impulses have largely been ignored in a literature more often focused on the authoritarian aspects of British rule after 1850, yet, as this study suggests, they are fundamental to comprehending both the history of the imperial post and the everyday foundations of Britain’s imperial authority in India.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Public lectures and plenary papers
Keynote address at the National Symposium of Historical Studies, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka... more Keynote address at the National Symposium of Historical Studies, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, 31 January 2018.
This inaugural symposium explored the theme 'The guidance of history for an innovative future'.
Introductory excerpt:
In recent years, scholars have begun to explore and analyse the politics of Asia's modern heritage boom, a phenomenon that has been facilitated by the rise of an affluent and mobile Asian middle class that is increasingly able to travel across the region because of the easing of visa restrictions and the rise of cheap airlines, which has resulted in a boom in domestic and international tourism. Scholars who belong to the youthful discipline of 'critical' heritage studies now view cultural conservation, preservation and heritage place-making as activities with far-reaching national and global repercussions. In East Asia, for the last thirty-plus years, heritage 'wars' have been fought between Japan on the one side, and South Korea and China on the other, over the public remembrance of these nations' violent twentieth century histories. UNESCO, and other international organizations dedicated to the universalizing and peace-making potential of cultural heritage, have become battle grounds in such contests. Alternatively, some experts argue that heritage-making has equally become the basis for international diplomacy and cooperation aimed at longer-term regional peace-making. UNESCO, it could be argued, still has the potential to bring together states yet to forgive one another for the atrocities of the past, around the same negotiating table.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
A talk given at the “Past in the Present: Histories in the making” conference, at the National Mu... more A talk given at the “Past in the Present: Histories in the making” conference, at the National Museum of Singapore on 17 November, 2007. Published as a chapter in The Past in the Present: Histories in the Making (Singapore: National Heritage Board, 2009), pp. 61-77. An abridged version appeared in the online journal S/pores.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Plenary address given at the ‘Paradoxes of the post colonial public sphere: South African democra... more Plenary address given at the ‘Paradoxes of the post colonial public sphere: South African democracy at the crossroads’ conference, University of the Witwatersrand, 28th- 31st January, 2008. This paper was later published as 'In search of cosmopolitan discourse: a historical journey from Singapore to South Africa', in Gupta, Hofmeyr and Pearson (eds), Eyes across the water: Navigating the Indian Ocean (Pretoria: UNISA, 2010).
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
A public lecture given at the National Museum of Singapore to launch Singapore: A Biography, 2009... more A public lecture given at the National Museum of Singapore to launch Singapore: A Biography, 2009 on the theme of 'embedded dissent'...which was going to be my trademarked academic formula until I read James Scott on ' hidden transcripts'.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Reviews and comments
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Papers in progress
Draft chapter for the proposed Cambridge HIstory of the Indian Ocean
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Paper given at the 'Chinese Diaspora Studies in the Age of Global Modernity' workshop, Asia Resea... more Paper given at the 'Chinese Diaspora Studies in the Age of Global Modernity' workshop, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, 19-20 November, 2015.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Drafts
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Part of a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies entitled 'Minority Majorit... more Part of a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies entitled 'Minority Majority', this essay examines the history of Singapore's immigration policy and its leaders' commitment to maintaining the island's Chinese community as a three-quarters majority of the total population.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Published Papers
This response to Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy examines the scholarly merits of these novels as works of microhistory, in which the author’s devotion to what we might term “thick description” (following the anthropologist Clifford Geertz) produces numerous fresh understandings. It argues that the standout features of these novels are Ghosh’s re-creations of historical spaces and historical languages, both of which provide invaluable insights for scholars and students, who rarely have the available time and resources to recover the same degree of microscopic detail. In addition, this essay addresses Ghosh’s credentials as a historian who tackles broader historiographical concerns by comparing his depiction of the British imperial trades in indentured labor and opium with the arguments made by certain revisionist historians. It suggests that one weakness of Ghosh’s first installment in the Ibis Trilogy is his failure to read Victorian primary sources with a sufficiently critical eye. However, it concludes that overall Ghosh remains a historiographical torchbearer who over much of his career has explored the past connections and convergences of the Indian Ocean world well ahead of the academic curve.
This article builds on a recent trend in the historiography of the British Empire, one which emphasises the multi-centred origins of ideologies, policies and social movements, to explore flows of humanitarian aid which emanated from Britain’s late-colonial Straits Settlements and then traversed the globe to reach Europe, the U.S., India, Persia, South Africa, China and Japan. It therefore challenges the Eurocentricism of recent, purportedly global, histories of the modern humanitarian movement, while reinforcing this movement’s close relationship with the history of international capital. Between 1870 and 1920, many leading humanitarian activists in the Straits Settlements were wealthy Chinese, Indian and Arab merchants, who along with their employees made up the principal donors during the charitable funds ‘craze’. In part, the humanitarian impulses of these activists derived from the alternative Asian universalisms being articulated by local Asian intellectuals at this time, with their well-publicized notions of ‘universal brotherhood’ and common humanity. At the same time, the Straits’ charitable funds ‘craze’ took on an undeniable pragmatic political character that was determined by the wider colonial context. Ultimately, overseas aid-giving became a field of action which bolstered the British Empire, yet offered Asian elites a space in which to contest the racial hierarchies which the Empire enforced and to demand new rights as imperial citizens
This essay examines the historical relationship between empire and information in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British Asia through a new examination of the imperial post. It argues that the creation of an Indian penny post in 1854 set in motion an information revolution which impacted regionally on literate and illiterate Indian subjects of the British Empire, on Indian publishers, and on colonial administrators. What historians have so far written about Britain’s imperial post has mostly presented it as an instrument of modern colonial state-building. When it has merited attention as an engine of social communication it has been mistakenly judged an outright failure. But as this essay argues, a study of the imperial post reveals Britain’s colonial state, within the wider context of a very illiberal British imperialism in Asia, trying to behave like a liberal one. While its desire for control and surveillance pulled it in one direction, Victorian notions of free trade, which in turn demanded an unrestricted circulation of information, pulled it in another. These contradictory impulses have largely been ignored in a literature more often focused on the authoritarian aspects of British rule after 1850, yet, as this study suggests, they are fundamental to comprehending both the history of the imperial post and the everyday foundations of Britain’s imperial authority in India.
Public lectures and plenary papers
This inaugural symposium explored the theme 'The guidance of history for an innovative future'.
Introductory excerpt:
In recent years, scholars have begun to explore and analyse the politics of Asia's modern heritage boom, a phenomenon that has been facilitated by the rise of an affluent and mobile Asian middle class that is increasingly able to travel across the region because of the easing of visa restrictions and the rise of cheap airlines, which has resulted in a boom in domestic and international tourism. Scholars who belong to the youthful discipline of 'critical' heritage studies now view cultural conservation, preservation and heritage place-making as activities with far-reaching national and global repercussions. In East Asia, for the last thirty-plus years, heritage 'wars' have been fought between Japan on the one side, and South Korea and China on the other, over the public remembrance of these nations' violent twentieth century histories. UNESCO, and other international organizations dedicated to the universalizing and peace-making potential of cultural heritage, have become battle grounds in such contests. Alternatively, some experts argue that heritage-making has equally become the basis for international diplomacy and cooperation aimed at longer-term regional peace-making. UNESCO, it could be argued, still has the potential to bring together states yet to forgive one another for the atrocities of the past, around the same negotiating table.
Reviews and comments
Papers in progress
Drafts
This response to Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy examines the scholarly merits of these novels as works of microhistory, in which the author’s devotion to what we might term “thick description” (following the anthropologist Clifford Geertz) produces numerous fresh understandings. It argues that the standout features of these novels are Ghosh’s re-creations of historical spaces and historical languages, both of which provide invaluable insights for scholars and students, who rarely have the available time and resources to recover the same degree of microscopic detail. In addition, this essay addresses Ghosh’s credentials as a historian who tackles broader historiographical concerns by comparing his depiction of the British imperial trades in indentured labor and opium with the arguments made by certain revisionist historians. It suggests that one weakness of Ghosh’s first installment in the Ibis Trilogy is his failure to read Victorian primary sources with a sufficiently critical eye. However, it concludes that overall Ghosh remains a historiographical torchbearer who over much of his career has explored the past connections and convergences of the Indian Ocean world well ahead of the academic curve.
This article builds on a recent trend in the historiography of the British Empire, one which emphasises the multi-centred origins of ideologies, policies and social movements, to explore flows of humanitarian aid which emanated from Britain’s late-colonial Straits Settlements and then traversed the globe to reach Europe, the U.S., India, Persia, South Africa, China and Japan. It therefore challenges the Eurocentricism of recent, purportedly global, histories of the modern humanitarian movement, while reinforcing this movement’s close relationship with the history of international capital. Between 1870 and 1920, many leading humanitarian activists in the Straits Settlements were wealthy Chinese, Indian and Arab merchants, who along with their employees made up the principal donors during the charitable funds ‘craze’. In part, the humanitarian impulses of these activists derived from the alternative Asian universalisms being articulated by local Asian intellectuals at this time, with their well-publicized notions of ‘universal brotherhood’ and common humanity. At the same time, the Straits’ charitable funds ‘craze’ took on an undeniable pragmatic political character that was determined by the wider colonial context. Ultimately, overseas aid-giving became a field of action which bolstered the British Empire, yet offered Asian elites a space in which to contest the racial hierarchies which the Empire enforced and to demand new rights as imperial citizens
This essay examines the historical relationship between empire and information in late nineteenth and early twentieth century British Asia through a new examination of the imperial post. It argues that the creation of an Indian penny post in 1854 set in motion an information revolution which impacted regionally on literate and illiterate Indian subjects of the British Empire, on Indian publishers, and on colonial administrators. What historians have so far written about Britain’s imperial post has mostly presented it as an instrument of modern colonial state-building. When it has merited attention as an engine of social communication it has been mistakenly judged an outright failure. But as this essay argues, a study of the imperial post reveals Britain’s colonial state, within the wider context of a very illiberal British imperialism in Asia, trying to behave like a liberal one. While its desire for control and surveillance pulled it in one direction, Victorian notions of free trade, which in turn demanded an unrestricted circulation of information, pulled it in another. These contradictory impulses have largely been ignored in a literature more often focused on the authoritarian aspects of British rule after 1850, yet, as this study suggests, they are fundamental to comprehending both the history of the imperial post and the everyday foundations of Britain’s imperial authority in India.
This inaugural symposium explored the theme 'The guidance of history for an innovative future'.
Introductory excerpt:
In recent years, scholars have begun to explore and analyse the politics of Asia's modern heritage boom, a phenomenon that has been facilitated by the rise of an affluent and mobile Asian middle class that is increasingly able to travel across the region because of the easing of visa restrictions and the rise of cheap airlines, which has resulted in a boom in domestic and international tourism. Scholars who belong to the youthful discipline of 'critical' heritage studies now view cultural conservation, preservation and heritage place-making as activities with far-reaching national and global repercussions. In East Asia, for the last thirty-plus years, heritage 'wars' have been fought between Japan on the one side, and South Korea and China on the other, over the public remembrance of these nations' violent twentieth century histories. UNESCO, and other international organizations dedicated to the universalizing and peace-making potential of cultural heritage, have become battle grounds in such contests. Alternatively, some experts argue that heritage-making has equally become the basis for international diplomacy and cooperation aimed at longer-term regional peace-making. UNESCO, it could be argued, still has the potential to bring together states yet to forgive one another for the atrocities of the past, around the same negotiating table.
http://www.warinasia.com/