(with Benjamin JQ Khoo) Singapore as a Port City, c.1290-1819: Evidence, Frameworks and Challenges (original) (raw)

(with Benjamin JQ Khoo) Singapore as a Port City, c.1290-1819: Evidence, Frameworks and Challenges

This article examines the historiography of Singapore as a port city from the late thirteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. It identifies and examines different types of historical evidence currently at our disposal, and walks readers through four main analytical frameworks that have been used to organize and interpret this body of evidence. The present article also addresses the main challenges presented both by the sources as well as analytical frameworks in reconstructing the history of Singapore as a port city across five centuries.