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LIVING WITH MYTHS IN SINGAPORE. Edited by Loh Kah Seng, Thum Ping Tjin, and Jack Meng-Tat Chia. Singapore: Ethos Books, 2017. xiv, 324 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, illustrations.) US$22.39, paper. ISBN 978-98111-3281-0.
Living with Myths in Singapore represents the end product of a series of ten "Living with Myths" seminars organized by the editors between July 2014 and August 2015. It is a landmark book for a comprehensive, alternative understanding of Singapore's post-World War II development trajectory. This volume, superbly edited by three historians, brings together twenty-four academics contributing twenty-four crisp, sharp, and well-written chapters. The chapters comprehensively cover all aspects of Singapore's society, including its foreign policy, politics, economics, and culture.
All the book's chapters are motivated by a singular purpose-helping the reader deconstruct the myths within the standard narratives of Singapore's development. This includes myths, among many others, about the reasons for Singapore's economic success, in the state's approaches towards social welfare, heritage, and multiculturalism, and in existing public policies regarding education, technology, and migrant workers. In the process of deconstructing these myths, the authors reveal their underlying assumptions, expose the power structures that perpetuate these myths, and probe the neglected conversations that these myths obscure.
Remarkably, there is no singular definition of myths that the authors employ. I counted at least four different definitions that were used throughout the book. Despite the diversity of definitions, the consensus among the authors is this: myths are not falsehoods. They are sweeping, imagined, simplified generalizations that highlight certain dominant logics of thinking while obscuring others. Moreover, these...