This is one of the first books to focus on the effects of imperialism across species in a colonial, urban society, reflecting the environmental turn in the humanities and social sciences. Through a multi-disciplinary consideration of fauna, Timothy P. Barnard weaves together a series of tales to document how animals were cherished, slaughtered, monitored and employed to provide insight into how imperial rule was imposed on an island in Southeast Asia.

Fauna and their histories of interacting with humans, thus, become useful tools for understanding our past, revealing the effects of establishing a colony on the biodiversity of a region, and the institutions that quickly transformed it. All animals, including humans, have been creatures of imperialism in Singapore. Their stories teach us lessons about the structures that upheld such a society and how it developed over time.