World War II Singapore

For forty-four months during World War II, the Japanese occupied Singapore, renaming it Syonan and setting out to drastically change life on the island. As part of the occupation, the Japanese created a research bureau, the Chosabu, to study occupied Singapore. The bureau’s detailed reports on the economy covered prices, wages, currency, rationing, living standards, food production, and industrialization. Syonan’s military and civilian administrators drew on them when formulating social and economic policies.

The reports were notoriously difficult to read, and so this exceptional translation by Gregg Huff and Shinobu Majima is a true linguistic accomplishment. These records are an invaluable record of life during this tumultuous period and are especially important as the Japanese destroyed most records of their wartime administration, leaving the Chosabu reports as one of the few first-hand sources to have survived. Introductory chapters by the editors position the reports against wartime events in Singapore and examine the careers of the Chosabu authors and the places they occupy in the history of Japanese economic thought.