At first glance, Studying Singapore before 1800 is a conventional collection of eighteen essays that showcases neglected scholarship on precolonial Singapore. At second glance, it is a forceful repudiation of the work of the History Department of the National University of Singapore (NUS) and its predecessors (the University of Singapore and the University of Malaya) throughout the entire second half of the twentieth century—scholarship that refused to study Singapore's history beyond the colonial-cum-nationalist story that starts with the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. Furthermore, it leaves little room to doubt where the fault lies. Over many decades, both successive departmental heads and leading professors such as K. G. Tregonning discouraged and ignored research that might lead to conclusions that would disturb comfortable Whiggish narratives favored by both colonial and nationalist elites. Their version of history derived entirely from British colonial records, written conveniently in English.
The case for...
