Abstract

Kuala Lumpur is the postmodern city writ large, a city that, within the short span of a decade, has been transformed from a sleepy capital into a technological marvel with a thriving, diverse and affluent cultural life. Using anecdotes, classic Malay myths and tales, and observations based on real and imaginary wanderings through the city, Ziauddin Sardar traces Kuala Lumpur's origins and charts the remarkable changes experienced by the city and its people, including both the recent economic crisis and the vicious power struggle between Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his ex-Deputy Anwar Ibrahim. Sardar shows how a collision of cultures (Malay, Chinese, Indian, indigenous, Western) has developed and re-emerged in the form of a new synthesis, inducing both a degree of disorientation and a unique sense of energy and excitement.
It is not often that what appears to be a sober academic history of a city's development, even one set in the hot and humid climate of the South-East Asian tropics, culminates in a saga of sodomy, police brutality and judicial corruption . . . the book charts the development from remote backwater to bustling Capital City . . . the author delights in challenging the colonial view of history.' Architectural Review 'a nice overview of Malaysia's and its capital city's rapid transformation from malarial backwater to high-tech metropolis. The book covers not only the physical changes, but the cultural and political realms that are equally as interesting even if not as easy to visualize.' Pacific Reader
Ziauddin Sardar is a writer, broadcaster and cultural critic. The author and editor of numerous books, he is Visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies at The City University, London, and contributes regularly to the New Statesman.