Ang Cheng Guan

Singapore’s Grand Strategy

Even small states can have grand strategies. Singapore, despite its poor natural resource endowment, small population, and territory has often been described as punching above its weight in international affairs. Part of this stems from the way Singapore integrates the different diplomatic, political and defence-oriented tools at its disposal in a strategic manner. This is a fresh and useful diplomatic, defence, and security history of Singapore, from independence in 1965 through the 2020s period of strategic realignment.

Most previous studies of grand strategy have focused on super- or at least middle powers, but Ang’s book builds an important contribution to international relations and strategic studies in showing how the concept can help explain the strategic posture and achievements of small states as well. Moreover, he brings a historian’s perspective to a subject usually tackled by political scientists. The result will be useful and important for scholars in these fields. The author’s well-crafted retelling of the Singapore story from an external perspective will be compelling for more general audiences as well.

Ang Cheng Guan is Professor of the International History of Southeast Asia at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

July 2023

Paperback • S$32 / US$32

ISBN: 978-981-325-223-3

232pp / 229 x 152mm

Malaysiakini and the Power of Independent Media in Malaysia

Malaysiakini was founded in 1999 by Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran, two young Malaysians who met as overseas students in Australia. One of the many online portals that sprung up in the wake of Reformasi, a movement sparked by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad’s 1998 firing of his deputy Anwar Ibrahim, there was no reason to think that Malaysiakini would be different from the other blogs and portals that covered the trial of the charismatic former deputy PM. Yet this would be a mistake, as Malaysiakini wanted to do something much more important than just report on Reformasi: its founders intended to bring independent journalism to Malaysia in hopes of changing the country.

Based on more than fifteen years of observation of Malaysiakini's newsroom practices, this book is an intimate portrait of the people and issues behind Malaysia’s only truly independent media outlet. The author illustrates Malaysiakini’s particular mix of idealism in action, with attention to how “sensitive” issues such as race, religion, politics, and citizenship get worked out in practice in the newsroom. This attention to the inner workings of one of the most important media institutions in the region yields not only a deep newsroom ethnography, but a nuanced, rich history of modern Malaysia.

October 2023

Paperback • S$32 / US$32

/ MYR 88

ISBN: 978-981-325-240-0

232pp / 229 x 152mm

11 b/w photos

Jakarta: The City of a Thousand Dimensions

A megacity of 30 million, under threat from rising sea levels and temperatures, Jakarta and its resilient residents improvise and thrive. Indonesian writer Seno Gumira Ajidarma calls Jakarta a city of a thousand dimensions. That suggests not only a picture represented in concepts such as “messy urbanism”, “emergent urbanism”, “incremental urbanism”, “mega-urban region” or “megacity”, it further suggests a form of governmentality (a political rationality, for better or worse) that has been formed through sedimented layers of time, that have shaped the sociocultural and political life of the city.

This book teases out some of the dimensions that have given shape to contemporary Jakarta, including the city’s expanded flexibility in accommodating capital and labour, the formal and the informal, and the consistent lack of planning which can be understood as both politics and poetics of governing. Required reading for those seeking to understand one of Asia’s most dynamic cities.

Abidin Kusno is a professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, Toronto, and former director of the York Centre for Asian Research.

May 2023

Paperback • S$34 / US$28

ISBN: 978-981-325-226-4

280pp / 229 x 152mm

33 b/w images

edited by Justin Zhuang