A wartime diary kept by a 17-year-old woman (of Australian and Malaysian descent) imprisoned during World War II. Sheila Bruhn's account is a woman's view of war and the Japanese occupation of Malaysia.

Information on the Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore is sparse, and Japanese-language materials are particularly difficult to find because the Japanese military systematically destroyed war-related documents when the war ended. The contributors to this volume participated in a Forum that spent four years locating surviving materials relating to the Occupation of Malaya. The group has three objectives: to collect primary sources, to interview Japanese military and civilian officials who took part in the military administration and people in Malaysia and Singapore who experienced the period, and to publish the results of the studies. Based on interviews with Japanese, Malaysians and Singaporeans who lived through the war years and materials gathered from archives and libraries in Britain, Malaysia, Singapore, USA, Australia, and India, the Forum has produced a number of Japanese-language publications. This book makes available some of their research findings in English. Topics covered include the Watanabe Military Administration, Japanese research activities in Malaya, Japan's Economic Policies, Malayan Communist Party Leaders and the Anti-Japanese Resistance, the Massacre of Chinese in Singapore, Railway Transportation during the Japanese Occupation Period, The Singapore internment Camp for Allied Civilian Women, and the Japanese Surrender. This volume is a revised version of Akashi Yoji, ed., Nippon Senryoka no Eiryo Maraya/Shingaporu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers, 2001). Book jacket.

Diary of a Girl in Changi is the moving personal account of a young girl living in the midst of hardship and adversity. Written on scraps of paper which were kept hidden in her quarters, Sheila Allan's diary is a record of the daily lives of those interned in Changi. On the one hand, these were years of wasted youth; on the other, they provided a rich learning experience in a community of close comradeship. Tolerance, humour and creativity, and above all, an undying hope for the future, colour her memories of this period.This third edition includes a new Preface and Conclusion, which tie up the 'loose ends' of the original Diary of a Girl in Changi. Also included is information on the Changi quilts. These embroidered squares, individually created and signed by the women internees, were sewn together into three separate quilts, and can be seen at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia

When C.M. Turnbull's A History of Singapore, 1819-1975 appeared in 1977, it quickly achieved recognition as the definitive history of Singapore. A second edition published in 1989 brought the story up to the elections held in 1988. In this fully revised edition, rewritten to take into account recent scholarship on Singapore, the author has added a chapter on Goh Chok Tong's premiership (1990-2004) and the transition to a government headed by Lee Hsien Loong. The book now ends in 2005, when the Republic of Singapore celebrated its 40th anniversary as an independent nation. Major changes occurred in the 1990s as the generation of leaders that oversaw the transition from a colony to independence stepped aside in favour of a younger generation of leaders. Their task was to shape a course that sustained the economic growth and social stability achieved by their predecessors, and they would be tested towards the end of the decade when Southeast Asia experienced a severe financial crisis. Many modern studies on Singapore focus on current affairs or very recent events and pay a great deal of attention to Singapore's successful transition from the developing to the developed world. However, younger historians are increasingly interested in other aspects of the country's past, particularly social and cultural issues. A History of Modern Singapore, 1819-2005 provides a solid foundation and an overarching framework for this research, surveying Singapore's trajectory from a small British port to a major trading and financial hub within the British Empire and finally to the modern city state that Singapore became after gaining independence in 1965.

The Sound of Memories: Recordings from the Oral History Centre, Singapore features the happy, funny, poignant and bittersweet — but always heartwarming and unforgettable — stories, memories and anecdotes of Singaporeans from all walks of life. Distilled from almost 5,000 interviews that the National Archives of Singapore's Oral History Centre has collected since 1979, these recordings describe the experiences of everyman, from tycoons and tailors to chief executive officers and chief cooks.Relive the significant moments that have unfolded in Singapore's history through the eyes of people who personally bore witness to these events. Their recollections are vividly captured in chapters on communities, schooldays, popular pastimes, the Japanese Occupation, food, national tragedies, medicine, economy, women, the performing arts and sports.

Half a world away from her home in Manitoulin Island, Ethel Mulvany is starving in Singapore’s infamous Changi Prison, along with hundreds of other women jailed there as POWs during the Second World War. They beat back pangs of hunger by playing decadent games of make-believe and writing down recipes filled with cream, raisins, chocolate, butter, cinnamon, ripe fruit – the unattainable ingredients of peacetime, of home, of memory. In this novelistic, immersive biography, Suzanne Evans presents a truly individual account of WWII through the eyes of Ethel – mercurial, enterprising, combative, stubborn, and wholly herself. The Taste of Longing follows Ethel through the fall of Singapore in 1942, the years of her internment, and beyond. As a prisoner, she devours dog biscuits and book spines, befriends spiders and smugglers, and endures torture and solitary confinement. As a free woman back in Canada, she fights to build a life for herself in the midst of trauma and burgeoning mental illness. Woven with vintage recipes and transcribed tape recordings, the story of Ethel and her fantastical POW Cookbook is a testament to the often-overlooked strength of women in wartime. It’s a story of the unbreakable power of imagination, generosity, and pure heart.