Epidemic Diseases in Penang, 1819
5 min read
“The principal Epidemic Diseases (on Prince of Wales Island) have been the small pox and cholera. The former recurs nearly every year, with more or less...
Honest Memoirs From An Extraordinary Lady
5 min read
This much-awaited volume lives up to all reasonable expectations and should be read by anyone – historian, lawyer or layman – interested in Penang,...
Martina Rozells – Penang’s first First Lady
5 min read
During the year 1772 Light allied himself with Martina Rozells, a lady regarding whose antecedents an element of romance has been attributed by some contempor...
The Creative Economy Appears Devised for Penang
3 min read
THE TERM “Creative Economy” sometimes sounds like an oxymoron in that human creativity is more often than not associated with the arts, executed more for passio...
Penang and East Sumatran Ports 1824
5 min read
The volume is a good reminder of what the cultural, commercial and political diversity in the Straits of Malacca looked like before late colonial empire-build...
Towards Clean Governance in Asean
32 min read
GOVERNANCE IS as clean as its dirtiest linkPenang Institute hosts the inaugural Conference of the Asean Coalition for Clean GovernanceThe Penang Institute w...
Developers of 18th Century Pinang
5 min read
Since the details are largely hearsay passed down by a son of Haji Brunie to Vaughan, caution should be exercised in accepting them as facts.The possession...
FOR A SOCIETY CIVIL AND DECENT
11 min read
Ooi Kee Beng: Let’s discuss the recent rise of civil society activism in Malaysia. We had a half-year of rallies in mid-2007, starting with 600 people f...
Penang Before Francis Light (as the English saw it in 1905)
3 min read
The book also intriguingly states that when Francis Light in 1786 settled in Penang, an island thought by the Europeans to be uninhabited, “he found 58...
Tariq Ramadan – Islam Reviewed From Within
16 min read
Ooi Kee Beng: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us after your very long day. Again, welcome to Penang. The point you made in your speech today, which s...
System of Government in the Straits Settlements, 1942
5 min read
Mills’ work is most probably the last scholarly analysis of how the British Empire was run east of the Indian subcontinent written just before it all came...
Cheah Cheng Hye
11 min read
Cheah Cheng Hye, alumnus of Penang Free School, has been called the Warren Buffett of the East. Although he claims that gives him way too much credit, the reaso...