America: A Singapore Perspective
Edited by Tommy Koh and Daljit Singh
Non-fiction/Straits Occasions Press/Paperback/200 pages/$32.10/Accessible right here
4 out of 5
This e book is a useful information to serving to Singaporeans perceive the advanced home realities underlying the international coverage of america.
Its 29 essays, written by a few of the most astute observers of Singapore’s relations with the US, don’t extol America and its values, however topic them to important scrutiny. The authors rejoice what America has achieved, however solely to the extent that in addition they reject the shortcomings of the American Dream skilled by People themselves and by their world companions.
Edited by Singapore diplomat Tommy Koh and veteran analyst Daljit Singh, the e book’s publication is well timed.
It analyses the enduring foundation of the connection between the US and Asia, which is presently being examined by the problem posed to American supremacy by China and Russia. Its backside line is that America shouldn’t be in terminal decline, however should not take its ties with buddies as a right.
A number of chapters construct on the provenance of as we speak’s America. They supply a lucid account of the checks and balances embedded within the on a regular basis functioning of American politics.
The worldwide company of the American greenback – defined in historic element by The Straits Occasions’ Vikram Khanna – is accompanied by the nation’s technological inventiveness, world-class universities and a pro-business atmosphere that contribute to America’s energy and its potential to carry different nations to account.
True, the coronavirus pandemic laid naked the dismal divisions in America over information and science below former president Donald Trump’s administration.
However former Singapore diplomat Ariel Tan notes the comfortable irony that, regardless of its vocal “anti-vaxxers”, the US produced “the world’s two best vaccines for the virus”.
Sociologist Kwok Kian-Woon warns, nonetheless, of the regular erosion of social capital within the US. The provision of that capital relies on the idea of “its residents not treating each other as enemies”.
Koh sums up the import of the e book when he notes that “America leads greatest overseas when it’s united at house”.
A number of ST journalists deal perceptively with distinguished examples of home discord within the US: ethnonationalism (Nirmal Ghosh), race and sophistication (Charissa Yong), weapons (Jeremy Au Yong), science scepticism (Audrey Tan), abortion (Lydia Lim) and immigration (Chua Mui Hoong).
