Asian Traditions and Modernization studies various aspects of change in Singapore and explores the ways in which tradition has shaped and moderated the process of modernization. Employing a multi-faceted approach that covers history, religion, science, ethnic relations and language, the book looks in depth at a country which has witnessed rapid modernization and yet at the same time desires to preserve cultural values. Because tradition and modernization are relative and open-ended concepts, traditional values can be modern in their orientation and conversely, modern societies can be traditional in their practices. The focal concern of the book is how these terms can be best and fully understood. This reissue features a new preface by the author.

Seventeen scholars from varying fields here consider the implications of Confucian concerns--self-cultivation, regulation of the family, social civility, moral education, well-being of the people, governance of the state, and universal peace--in industrial East Asia.

This book explores the unfolding of modernity in the greater Asia that uniquely takes shape at different times and places, with a particular attention to a common thread that has been at heart of the development: religion. The status of religion has been relegated in the Western modernity to such that its effects be restricted within the private realm and not be exerted in the public or one's rationality. This edited volume sheds light on the multifarious forces of religion both in the past and present that have impacted on the essential aspects of modern society — aspects in which one does not usually have recourse to religion in the West — from science and technology, politics, and to identity in Asia. Interdisciplinary approaches in the volume allow one to broadly examine religious practices within Asian contexts, thus enabling to reevaluate the concept, scope, and gamut of so-called religion.

Drawing on historical sociology, transnational histories and Asian traditions, Duara seeks answers to the pressing global issue of environmental sustainability.

This book discusses and identifies the modernizing trends, which have changed Southeast Asian countries in varying ways. After an overview of current concepts of modernity, the following chapters introduce issues of education, citizenship and ethnicity, religion, the emergence of the middle class, and mass consumption in Southeast Asia. This book concludes by profiling the characteristics of Southeast Asian modernity.