Author: Paul H. Kratoska
Synopsis: For three-and-a-half bleak years during World War II, Japan occupied Malaya and Singapore, transforming a once prosperous and vibrant region into a desolate place rife with unemployment, corruption, inflation and shortages of essential supplies. As Japan’s promised Greater East Asia crumbled, malnourished residents increasingly faced a struggle to survive, with little prospect of better times ahead.
Originally published in 1998, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya and Singapore is fully updated with material from newly discovered and recently translated documents and as well as new archival evidence. Kratoska’s work offers a clear depiction of wartime life under foreign occupation, and explains how the legacies of war and occupation shaped the post-war recovery in Malaya and Singapore.