July 22, 2021

Singapore celebrated its 50^th year of independence on 9^th August 2015. The jubilee event, titled ‘SG50’, was celebrated with a range of community initiatives and programs that commemorated Singapore’s history, progress, and achievements. To support the SG50 programme, the National University of Singapore created the NUS Singapore History Prize.

Awarded every three years, the NUS Singapore History Prize is a competition dedicated to our nation’s history. It aims to bring much needed attention to the history of Singapore by developing new historical understandings of the nation-state in our national imagination. The Prize nominates and shortlists publications that have best met these objectives. The winner of the competition is carefully selected by a jury chaired by Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, and awarded a cash prize of S$50,000.

Six works have been shortlisted for the 2021 Prize. Three out of the six shortlisted works were produced by faculty members at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. These works are:

• Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942 (NUS Press, 2019) by Associate Professor Timothy P. Barnard (NUS History)
• Home is Where We Are (NUS Press, 2020) by Professor Wang Gungwu (NUS History)
• Seven Hundred Years: A History of Singapore (Marshall Cavendish, 2019) by Honorary Adjunct Associate Professor Kwa Chong Guan, Professor Tan Tai Yong, Associate Professor Peter Borschberg (all from NUS History), and Dr Derek Heng (ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute).

In Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942, A/P Barnard documents and outlines how animals were treated in colonial Singapore. He contends that these stories are a window to Singapore’s colonial past, revealing the impact of imperial rule on Singapore’s rich biodiversity. He extends this argument by showing that the effects of colonial rule on the island’s flora and fauna provide insight into the power structures that reinforced the grip colonial powers had on Singapore and its inhabitants at that time.

Home is Where We Are is Prof. Wang’s account of his emotional and intellectual journey through his academic career, from his emerging years as an undergraduate to his early academic positions in Malaysia. His journey navigating life as a young academic in rising Southeast Asia affords Prof. Wang a unique opportunity to reflect on identity and belonging amidst a turbulent period in the region’s history.

Aiming to break away from the common historical narrative that Singapore was a “sleepy, fishing village” before the arrival of the British, Seven Hundred Years: A History of Singapore develops a new approach to thinking about Singapore’s history. The authors outline a singular historical trajectory for Singapore, one that documents events predating Raffles’ arrival.

The 2021 Prize is the second iteration of the NUS Singapore History Prize. A winner will be selected and announced in October 2021.

Read a synopsis of the works here!