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).

316 posts

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,...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

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...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng

Inhabitants of Penang, 1803

4 min read

The 38-page typewritten volume was conceived more as a report to the East India Company and the British Government in London than as a public document. Certain...

by Dato' Dr. Ooi Kee Beng