Book Talk: He Who is Made Lord: Empire, Class and Race in Postwar Singapore

Wednesday, October 8, 2025, 3:00–4:30 PM HST | 8:00–9:30 PM EST | 9:00–10:30 AM SST (Oct 9)

Moore Hall 258 and Online

Register: https://go.hawaii.edu/rhr

Join us for a conversation with Muhammad Suhail Mohamed Yazid, Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center, as he discusses his latest book He Who is Made Lord: Empire, Class and Race in Postwar Singapore (Yusof Ishak Institute, ISEAS).

He Who is Made Lord visits late colonial Singapore to uncover the politics of the island’s titular office. As the representative of the British Crown, the institution connected Singapore not only to the United Kingdom, but also to different global and regional orders. Muhammad Suhail demonstrates how the office came to concurrently represent many things: a symbol to support and subvert imperialism, to conserve and contest class distinctions, and to buttress and break racial barriers.

The book offers an intimate perspective on the awkward process of decolonization — not just in Singapore, but in many places grappling with the end of empire. Through this lens, Suhail invites us to reconsider the enduring legacies of colonial institutions in shaping the postwar world.

About the Author:
Muhammad Suhail is a Fellow at the Harvard University Asia Center. His research explores how leaders from the Global South challenged the rules of the international system in the decades after colonialism. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge.

Moderator:
Dr. Barbara Watson Andaya, Emerita Professor of Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

Hosted by the UH Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Free and open to the public.