Singapore is a dominant player in the global economy, serving both as an essential business hub for international finance and home to some of the world's most important ports. It is also one of the world's smallest and most resource-poor countries.

This book offers an engaging examination of Singapore using a theme of globalization to explain how the country's worldwide interactions across centuries have resulted in an ethnically diverse society and allowed it to ascend to a position of being an economic powerhouse. Every significant historic event and era--from its status as a meeting...