August 13, 2025

Wang Gungwu: Why the World Looks Like the World Today?

2 hours 15 minutes

Pre-order Gita Wirjawan’s book, “What It Takes”, NOW:

https://sgpp.me/what-it-takes-yt

What makes civilizations rise, thrive, and sometimes vanish? How do geography, language, and ideas shape the destiny of nations? In this sweeping conversation, historian Wang Gungwu takes us on a 2,000-year journey—through the birth of the nation-state, the paradoxes of Southeast Asia, and the making of modern China.

From the Abbasid Golden Age to Mongol conquests, from India’s gods to China’s bureaucracy, from Indonesia’s “miracle” to Singapore’s unlikely success—this is history as a map for the future. We talk about borders, culture, and the problem of succession; why civilizations fail when they can’t communicate; and how Southeast Asia can lead without imitating China or the US.

It’s a masterclass in how the past shapes the present—and a call for the next generation to learn, adapt, and imagine a better world order.

#Endgame #GitaWirjawan #WangGungwu

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About Professor Wang Gungwu:

Prof. Gungwu is a renowned historian and scholar of Chinese history and the Chinese diaspora. He is University Professor at the National University of Singapore and Professor Emeritus at the Australian National University. He has served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong and Director of the East Asian Institute at NUS, and is widely recognized as a pioneer in overseas Chinese studies and a leading voice in the study of China’s place in the world.

About the Host:

Gita is an Indonesian entrepreneur and educator. He is the founding partner of Ikhlas Capital and the chairman of Ancora Group. Currently, he is teaching at Stanford as a visiting scholar with Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy; and a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

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