The impact of the Emergency on the economy and society of Malaya was felt far beyond the jungle and its fringes. Hitherto, historians of the period have had little to say about this. This chapter attempts to bring some form to a kaleidoscopic picture of change. It argues that the most significant social fact of the last ten years of colonial rule was the growth of the colonial state. Government became a more intimate part of people's lives, yet at the same time it became more formal and impersonal. Its structure was bolted together by the needs of counter-insurgency. Yet its girth was not all-encompassing. The late colonial state was a ‘house of glass’ through which powerful forces of change can be observed coursing through Malayan society. The foundations for Malaya's post-colonial governance were laid. As commerce began to resume business as usual, the relationship between European and Asian concerns was changing. Whilst the Emergency was a time of economic dislocation for many, by others it is remembered as a period of rare, if fragile, prosperity. Even for those communities that did not live at the forefront of the military campaign, life was changing in myriad ways. For Indian estate labour a process of social reform was underway, which was increasingly bound up with reconstituted trade unionism. Rapid urbanisation was another register of change. It bred social evils and cultural insecurities, but also created new communities.