Amazon.com description: Product Description: This is the first of a series of five volumes on the ASEAN countries being published by Oxford University Press in collaboration with the Southeast Asian Studies Program. In 1819 Thomas Stamford Raffles established an outpost of British India on a sparsely populated island at the southern end of the Straits of Malacca. This book tells how that settlement became a Crown Colony that was for over 100 years one of the most prosperous ports not just of British Malaya, but in the entire British Empire. This multi-faceted historical process is discussed by eighteen Singapore scholars. Starting with a short survey of the pre-modern history of Singapore, their work provides both a chronological account of events and specialized studies including community, the family, education, mass media, housing, health care, welfare, population growth, and national identity.