Churchill's description of the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, after Lt-Gen Percival's surrender led to over 100,000 British, Australian and Indian troops falling into the hands of the Japanese, was no wartime exaggeration. The Japanese had promised that there would be no Dunkirk in Singapore, and its fall led to imprisonment, torture and death for thousands of allied men and women. With much new material from British, Australian, Indian and Japanese sources, Colin Smith has woven together the full and terrifying story of the fall of Singapore and its aftermath. Here, alongside cowardice and incompetence, are forgotten acts of enormous heroism; treachery yet heart-rending loyalty; Japanese compassion as well as brutality from the bravest and most capricious enemy the British ever had to face.

In conjunction with Singapore's 50th birthday in August 2015, 50 Years of Environment: Singapore's Journey Towards Environmental Sustainability takes the reader through Singapore's environmental journey over the past 50 years, to its present day challenges and solutions, and seeks to explore what lies ahead for Singapore's environmental future. This book is divided into three parts. The first, drawn largely from the book Clean, Green and Blue: Singapore's Journey Towards Environmental and Water Sustainability, will explore the historical developments in Singapore's environmental journey and the development of NEWater. The second part will be a collection of essays that examine the present environmental challenges that Singapore faces and the ways in which it is addressing those issues through community engagement, international engagement, research and technology, and industry solutions in order to develop sustainable strategies and solutions. Part Three will bring the book to a close by tying the historical and contemporary threads together and discusses the future challenges for Singapore's environment.

Shortly after midnight on 8 December 1941, two divisions of crack troops of the Imperial Japanese Army began a seaborne invasion of southern Thailand and northern Malaya. Their assault developed into a full-blown advance towards Singapore, the main defensive position of the British Empire in the Far East. The defending British, Indian, Australian and Malayan forces were outmanoeuvred on the ground, overwhelmed in the air and scattered on the sea. By the end of January 1942, British Empire forces were driven back onto the island of Singapore Itself, cut off from further outside help. When the Japanese stormed the island with an an-out assault, the defenders were quickly pushed back into a corner from which there was no escape. Singapore’s defenders finally capitulated on 15 February, to prevent the wholesale pillage of the city itself. Their rapid and total defeat was nothing less than military humiliation and political disaster. Based on the most extensive use yet of primary documents in Britain, Japan, Australia and Singapore, Brian Farrell provides the fullest picture of how and why Singapore fell and its real significance to the outcome of the Second World War.

When Singapore fell so ignominiously to the Japanese in February 1942, many tens of thousands of men, women and children were left to their own devices. To stay in Singapore meant certain captivity. This book tells of some of the remarkable and shocking experiences that lay in store for those who decided to escape by whatever means. A shocking and inspiring book that embraces great courage and endurance.

The director of the famed Bodleian Libraries at Oxford narrates the global history of the willful destruction—and surprising survival—of recorded knowledge over the past three millennia. Libraries and archives have been attacked since ancient times but have been especially threatened in the modern era. Today the knowledge they safeguard faces purposeful destruction and willful neglect; deprived of funding, libraries are fighting for their very existence. Burning the Books recounts the history that brought us to this point. Richard Ovenden describes the deliberate destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the UK Windrush generation. He examines both the motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and the broader themes that shape this history. He also looks at attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information, often risking their own lives in the process. More than simply repositories for knowledge, libraries and archives inspire and inform citizens. In preserving notions of statehood recorded in such historical documents as the Declaration of Independence, libraries support the state itself. By preserving records of citizenship and records of the rights of citizens as enshrined in legal documents such as the Magna Carta and the decisions of the US Supreme Court, they support the rule of law. In Burning the Books, Ovenden takes a polemical stance on the social and political importance of the conservation and protection of knowledge, challenging governments in particular, but also society as a whole, to improve public policy and funding for these essential institutions.

Collects interviews with survivors, bystanders, and emergency workers during the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, focusing on the different "zones of sadness" affected by the attack.

The Fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 is a military disaster of enduring fascination. For the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the island, Peter Thompson tells the explosive story of the Malayan campaign, the siege of Singapore, the ignominious surrender to a much smaller Japanese force, and the Japanese occupation through the eyes of those who were there - the soldiers of all nationalities and members of Singapore's beleaguered population. An enthralling and perceptive account, which never loses sight of the human cost of the tragedy - Yorkshire Evening Post. An insightful and dramatic analysis - The Good Book Guide