Bind Us in Time: Nation and Civilisation in Asia

by Wang Gungwu

With the quick pace of social and political transformation brought on by the global technological and economic changes which took place in the 19th and 20th centuries, historians have become conscious of how the nation state has come to dominate all civilisations in a fraction of the time it has taken the world's civilisations to develop and evolve. This book seeks to convey how we may be that while we should honour the time taken to build civilisations and bind ourselves to their best achievements, it is also vital to recognise the short amount of time we have to ensure that peoples living within state boundaries come to bind with each other as modern nation states. This study reflects the author's conviction that although Asians require nation states to deal with the exigencies of modernisation, the rich heritage of Asian civilisations gathered over centuries should not be neglected but remain a vital part of the region's well-being, perhaps in the provision of "time-prov

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First published April 1, 2002

About the author

Wang Gungwu is an academic who has studied and written about the Chinese diaspora, although he has objected to the use of the word diaspora to describe the migration of Chinese from China, because it is inaccurate and has been used to perpetuate fears of a "Chinese threat". He was born in Surabaya, Indonesia, and grew up in Ipoh, Malaysia. He completed his secondary education in Anderson School, Ipoh before going to the university.

He studied history in the University of Malaya, Singapore, where he received both his Bachelor and Masters degrees. He holds a Ph.D. from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1957) for his thesis on The structure of power in North China during the Five Dynasties. He taught at the University of Malaya (in both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur) before going to Canberra in 1968 to become Professor of Far Eastern History in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS) at Australian National University. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong from 1986 to 1995. In 2007, Wang became the third person to be named University Professor by the National University of Singapore.