Penang and its region is the first of two volumes to emerge from The Penang Story Conference. Held in 2002, the Conference was held in the run-up to the port-city's application for World Heritage status, and aimed to deepen knowledge of its history as well as promote greater awareness of its ‘living’ culture.
As part of this endeavour, this book brings together 12 papers that deal with one of two unifying themes: Penang and its role as a hub or maritime junction; and Penang as part of a network spanning Southeast Asia and beyond. Seeking to break away from standard nation- and Euro-centric approaches to history, the chapters seek to approach Penang from a variety of perspectives. As such, the book aims to provide an ‘original framework for reconstructing Penang's distinctive history out of diverse strands of narratives’ (p. xv).
The first two chapters provide long-ranging historical overviews of Penang. The first by Tan Liok Ee spans the port's history from 1786 to the present day. The second by C.M. Turnbull focuses on changes in Penang's role during the existence of the Straits Settlements. The next five chapters look at Penang's relationships with surrounding areas, largely, but not exclusively, through the prism of trade relations. These chapters use a variety of perspectives, such as looking at trading communities in Penang (Virunha), cross-territorial relations (Khoo, King and Lubis), and continuities and changes in commercial interactions (Loh).
The next three chapters focus on the lives and commercial relations of prominent Penang-based entrepreneurs and their families. Chung analyses the Eu Yan Sang firm, Wu looks at the Choong family, and Trocki studies Koh Seang Tat and the opium trade.
The last two chapters look at civil society in Penang. Leong looks at the role of secret societies in the city during the late 1940s and early 1950s and Tan looks at the radicalisation of the Penang Division of the Labour Party in the 1960s.
Overall, Penang and its region contains much that is of interest to scholars focusing on Penang and the Straits Settlements, as well as maritime and business history. The papers cover a broad range of topics, ensuring that there will be something of import to a wide readership. Perhaps the most useful outcome of the range of perspectives used by the authors is that interesting connections are made between Penang and the surrounding region. Whether it be Perak, Sumatra, Southern Thailand or Singapore, readers are shown how the port-city had deep and changing connections with a range of national and subnational territories.
However, despite its claims of having several connecting themes, the chapters do not really come together into a coherent whole. This book is not a ‘framework’, nor is it a structured questioning of prevailing approaches and narratives. It is, in essence, a collection of essays on a range of topics spanning Penang's history from 1786 to the present day.
There are also some existential tensions in the book. For example, the first chapter by Loh seeks to cast the book as one that questions standard narratives of Penang and wider Southeast Asia, which hold that this region really only assumes importance when it appears on European trade routes. However, the chapters by Turnbull and Virunha take this as their starting point.
In addition, for a book that is a component part of a project that seeks to preserve living heritage, it is based to a large degree on written sources. Some chapters draw on interviews, but there is little recourse to analysing living traditions and customs or oral traditions. Furthermore, the personal stories and analyses of trade focus exclusively on elite members of society. The book would have been vastly enriched by the inclusion of chapters on the stories of ‘other’ groups, such as petty traders, minorities and women.
Last, the portrayal of Penang as a port-city enables many connections, but at the expense of some others. While the land-based connections to Perak and Southern Thailand are very important additions to the book, it is surprising that Seberang Prai gets so little mention. The other half of Penang is portrayed almost exclusively as an agricultural hinterland. Yet, it must be recognised that, just as Penang's identity is shaped by its relationships with surrounding regions, it is also shaped by internal dynamics.
In sum, Penang and its region is a collection of slightly disparate but well-written and researched essays that examine important aspects of the port-city's history and highlight a number of its little-known connections with surrounding areas.
