Rickshaw Coolie: A People's History of Singapore, 1880-1940

James F. Warren

Between 1880 and 1930 colonial Singapore attracted tens of thousands of Chinese immigrant laborers, brought to serve its rapidly growing economy. This book chronicles the vast movement of coolies between China and the Nanyang, and their efforts to survive in colonial Singapore. Focusing in on one particular occupation, of rickshaw coolie, this study unveils the devastating poverty of the Chinese sojourner in the colonial city, the disjunctions between colonial order and the reality of life on the streets.

Drawing on a broad range of sources, including Coroner's records overlooked for many years, and making use of the technique of collective biography, this book brings to life the texture of experience, the ironies and - often - the despair of the laborers of urban Singapore.

In the years since its original publication in 1986, Rickshaw Coolie has become an inspiration to those seeking to come to grips with Singapore's past.

James F. WARRREN is Professor of Southeast Asian History at Murdoch University, and has taught at Australian National University, Yale and Kyoto University. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore,. He is the author of Sulu Zone, 1768-1898 (1981) and Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding, and the Birth of Ethnicity (2002).

«Together with Ah Ku and Karayuki-san, the most original and important books published on the history of Singapore since the Second World War.»
- John Bastin

« a fascinating reconstruction»
- the Far Eastern Economic Review

«Warren's success in bringing the Singapore rickshaw coolies to life must rank as a major achievement and will justifiably make his book very influential for a long time to come... Warren's book, with its outstanding success in evoking a detailed picture of the workers' lives, is likely to become a classic»
- Asian Studies Associate of Australia Review

[A Singapore: Studies in History and Society Series] 

publication year: 2003
393 pages
ISBN: 978-9971-69-266-7  Paperback  US$30.00  S$38.00