Kuala Lumpur at War, 1939-1945

This book is about the experience of war on Kuala Lumpur. This is not a "military history" in the sense that there was very little fighting either when the Japanese entered the city in January 1942 or when the British returned in September 1945. Rather, the focus of the book is on how conflict, the Japanese occupation and the return of the British impacted on the city and its people. The three years and eight months of Japanese governance wrought huge change, and were a tilting point in the history of Malaya. As the capital city, Kuala Lumpur was a central player in these changes. This is the story of those years ...

Andrew Barber is a former British diplomat and runs AB&A, a corporate research company based in Kuala Lumpur. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, and is the author of a number of books on Malaysian history. He is married with two daughters.