Students of history and strategic studies will welcome the renewed availability of this classic study of the geographical, technological, and political forces which shaped the strategic importance of Singapore over the seven centuries prior to Britain's withdrawal of its military in 1971. The four authors have all taught or studied at the University of Singapore. John N. Miksic contributed the first four chapters, the first of which draws on archaeological evidence and scattered sources to sketch the centuries prior to the arrival of the British in 35 pages. The fact that Singapore had flourished as a commercial and political centre during the fourteenth century as described in the Malay Annals (1611) influenced Stamford Raffles' choice of the island as the site of a new British military and trading centre. The Dutch posed a threat to the new settlement until an 1824 treaty exchanged British interests in Sumatra for Dutch acceptance of Britain's development of the Malay Peninsula. Four chapters (two by Miksic and two by Chiang Ming Shun) focus on the construction of the island's defences and the impact of the shift from sail to steam power on its strategic position through the end of the First World War. During that conflict British officials had to call upon their then ally, Japan, to assist in subduing a mutiny by the Indian Army's 5th Light Infantry, a fact remembered by the Japanese and the people of Singapore, but soon forgotten by Britain.

Malcolm Murfett's chapter on the interwar era follows the traditional and somewhat simplistic criticism of policy-makers' decisions to construct a major base at Singapore that was to serve as the linchpin in defence of the empire in the East, but to garrison it lightly in the belief that a fleet could be dispatched from home waters and the Mediterranean and reach the island in time to meet any emergency. The same author's chapter on life under Japanese occupation, a ‘watershed in Singapore's political and constitutional development’ (p. 245), examines the 1942–45 years from the perspective of local Singaporeans, Allied prisoners of war, civilian internees, and the Japanese administration. More nuanced than much longer accounts of the era, it is among the best sections of the book.

Brian P. Farrell contributed the remaining four chapters. His account of the military operations leading to Japanese capture of the island in 1942 exposes as canards the old saws that the ‘guns of Singapore pointed in the wrong connection’, that morale of Australian troops collapsed, forcing surrender, and that the Japanese were near exhaustion and short of supplies, showing that without air and naval reinforcements the British position was doomed. A thorough analysis of operations in Malaya identifies errors made by Lieutenant General Arthur E. Percival — particularly the decision to split up his army to cover every possible Japanese advance while his opponent, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, concentrated his forces — which hastened what Winston Churchill called ‘the worst disaster’ in the history of the British Empire. The prime minister's attempt to make the liberation of Singapore the focus of British strategy for the rest of the war was thwarted by both his American allies and his own chiefs of staff.

Britain's perceived need to retain unfettered use of its bases in Singapore drove policy during the postwar era. Indeed the facilities there were vital to success in quelling the Malayan Emergency and the 1962 revolt in Brunei — characterised as ‘the most effective military operation mounted by British forces in [the twentieth] century’ (p. 317) — as well as the success in the ‘Confrontation’ with Indonesia that followed. The section on Singapore-Malaysia-British-Australian-New Zealand negotiations that accompanied Britain's withdrawal from bases in Singapore is particularly strong.

Many readers will wish that similar treatment was accorded the development of Singapore's armed forces and that the study had been extended to analysis of the next four decades to include the growth of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, formed in 1967, and the combating of piracy at the turn of the millennium, but that is, perhaps, asking too much of authors who have clearly accomplished their goal in presenting a solid analysis of the strategic role of Singapore over seven centuries.