Imagining Singapore

This book explores the unique Singapore experience: its internal landscape, how the landscape came about, was conceived of and conceptualized, and how the imagination played and continues to play an important role in such conceptions. The collected essays, written by a multidisciplinary group of writers including historians, economists, geographers, political scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and literary specialists, cover a wide range of topics relating to Singapore society, including historiography, resource and recreational planning, bilingualism and population management, religion and politics, and gender. A common thread tying together these essays is the mental construction of reality from which thinking proceeds. This second edition features two new essays - "Imagining Freedom" and "Imagining the Singapore Economy in the Next Lap" - and revisions and updates of the original essays and a new preface.