Penang under the East India Company 1786-1858
Andrew Barber
AB&A. 2009; Hard cover;160 pages
Review by Ooi Kee Beng
The salience of the approach Barber chose to tell the early history of Penang is seen immediately in the introduction through several observations that immediately remind us of the island settlement's unique place in history.
Describing Penang's early fate within the internal dynamics of the British East India Company makes for a highly suggestive and informative narrative, not only about politics and economics but more interestingly about the cultural distinctiveness of Britain's first settlement east of India.
The Company was born in another age, exactly on December 31, 1600, just is months before Queen Elizabeth I of England passed away. Throughout its first two centuries, its dealings with the world exhibited "tolerance and cosmopolitanism". This slowly changed with the company's administration becoming more centralised in tandem with the increasing power of the kingdom.
