Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

is the Executive Director of Penang Institute. His recent books include The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS 2016).

310 posts

On vibrant port cities and anomalous nation states

6 min read

Ho Eng Seng returned to Penang in 1986 from Stanford University with degrees in Anthropology and Economics. The timing was bad, however. The country was in th...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Regional Span Of Sun Yat Sen’s Republicanism

3 min read

Few dates in East Asia’s recent past act so well as a watershed for the scholar writing on the modern history of the region as October 10, 1911 does. On t...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The day George Town grew up

4 min read

IT IS THE MORNING OF the New Year. The face of the Victoria Memorial Clock Tower blocking the rising sun to the east shows the time to be 8.50.Here, on the Es...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The enchanting hill of early Penang

4 min read

Nahuijs was the first Dutch Resident for Suracarta and Yogjakarta, holding that office from 1816 until 1822 when he retired from office. While making his way...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Straits Muslims: Diasporas of the Northern Passage of the Straits of Malacca

4 min read

MARITIME SOUTH-EAST ASIA WAS – and is – a region filled with port cities. Such urban centres tend to concentrate both power and money. But more th...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Penang On The Brink of War,1821

4 min read

The Rajah of Ligor sent a hundred war perahus into Penang harbour, and with enemies at the gate, the first ever volunteer corps in Penang was formed by its inha...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Kedah Hoped For The Return of Province Wellesley in 1957

1 min read

How the independent Federation of Malaysia would incorporate its various parts was not a given thing, and the issues up for negotiation in 1956–1957 wer...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Malay Journalism Before The War

5 min read

Zainal-Abidin B. Ahmad (1895–1973) a.k.a Za’ba was a writer and teacher. A native of Negeri Sembilan, he was the first Malay to pass the Senior Camb...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

A Pressman’s Progress

5 min read

THE STRAITS ECHO WAS Tan Thean Peng’s first employer. He joined as a reporter in 1978 after finishing his A-levels at St Xavier’s Institution only t...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

The Spice Island of Penang, 1834

5 min read

PENANG HAS been a spice island from the period nearly of its first settlement. Pepper engrossed the consideration of capitalists for many years, and until...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Our Economist At The UN

7 min read

I first met Jomo KS in late 2004. This was also in Singapore, just after I had relocated back to the region from Europe. Having lived almost three decades on th...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Adult Suffrage Comes to Penang and Malaysia, 1951

5 min read

Voter registration under way.The Report on the Introduction of Elections in the Municipality of George Town, Penang (Kuala Lumpur: Government Press, 1951)...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng