About the Book
Written by Sultan Nazrin Shah - the author of the highly acclaimed works Charting the Economy and Striving for Inclusive Development - this book is a pioneering study of the many economic and social changes in the natural resource-rich Malaysian state of Perak over the last two centuries. When globalization first took hold and international trade networks broadened and deepened in the first half of the 19th century, and a new
capitalist world order emerged in the second, Perak was a key player. Its tin was in high demand in Western industrializing countries and foreign capital, labour, and technology propelled it forward. By 1900, Perak
accounted for almost half of Malaya's tin output and a staggering quarter of world output, with its prosperity making it the Malay peninsula's commercial hub. Likewise, during the global rubber boom that began in the early 20th century as cars were mass produced for the first time, Perak was the largest rubber-producing state in the peninsula. This book brings together a range of key sub-themes - economic geography, the institutional legacy of colonialism, increasing
federal government centralization, forces of economic agglomeration, and human migration - which drove Perak's fortunes in sometimes dramatic economic cycles and ultimately led to the collapse of its tin
and rubber industries and the migration of many of its young and skilled. The book concludes by looking forward, analysing Perak's characteristics, and extrapolating lessons from formerly wealthy industrial centres originally blessed with natural resources but subsequently left behind by new waves of globalization, such as Cornwall and Sheffield in the United Kingdom, and Pittsburgh and Scranton in the United States. With a new vision Perak can regenerate itself and once
again emerge triumphant against a tough global background-Covid-19, war, and deglobalization.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part 1. People, Protection, and a Base for Prosperity
A Globalizing World
Perak's Lifeblood: Its Rivers, Settlements, and People
Invading Traders and Powerful Neighbours
Traditional Governance Destabilized
From the Curse of Conflict to Colonialism, 1860-1874
Pangkor: Resistance, Retaliation, and Reflection, 1874-1877
After Pangkor: Claiming Strategic Territory
British Governance and Federalism Fortified, 1870s-1920s
Part 2. Perak's Prosperity: Propelled by Natural Resources
Globalization of Perak's Tin and Rubber Industries
Tin's Shift from Larut to Kinta, 1850-1900
From Chinese to British Tin-Mining Dominance, 1900-1940
The Natural Rubber Boom, 1900-1940
Rising Living Standards, 1900-1940
Japanese Occupation, Insurgency, and Decolonization, 1941-1957
Looking Back- and Forward
Part 3A. The Decline of Tin and Rubber: Continued British Economic Dominance
Globalization and Perak's Changing Fortunes
Tin: Slump, Recovery, and Ultimate Collapse, 1957-1990
Rubber and the Transition to Palm Oil, 1957-1991
Independence but Continued British Economic Dominance, 1957-1970
Part 3B. Policy Changes amid Absolute Advance but Relative Decline
Globalization's Impact, 1970-2020: From Basic Commodities to Manufactures and More
The New Economic Policy and its Impact on Perak during its Early Relative Decline, 1970-1990
Strategic Responses amid New Challenges, 1990-2020
Part 3C. Economic, Income, and Demographic Changes with Relative Decline
Economic Change, 1990-2020
Income Change, 1990-2020
Demographic Change, 1957-2020
Reflections on Six Decades of Progress
Part 4. Towards a New Vision for Perak
Globalization: Looking Back, and Forward, in a Post-Covid-19 World
Cities and Towns Blighted by Globalization
Regenerating Perak
Towards a New Vision for Perak
References
About the Author :
Sultan Nazrin Shah is the Ruler of Perak and the Deputy King of Malaysia. He is Chancellor of the University of Malaya, and an Honorary Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He holds a BA (Hons) degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford; A Master in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and a PhD in Political Economy and
Government, also from Harvard University.
Sultan Nazrin oversees and provides direction for the Economic History of Malaya project (www.ehm.my) and is the author of Charting the Economy: Early 20th Century Malaya and Contemporary Malaysian Contrasts (2017) and Striving for Inclusive Development: From Pangkor to a Modern Malaysian State (2019), both published by OUP Malaysia.
Review :
This book combines erudition with perspicacity and comprehensiveness with attention to detail. It is a product of painstaking research, but written in an engaging and accessible style which means that it will have an appeal to non-specialist audiences as well as to professional economists and policy wonks.
This pioneering book has not only unearthed new knowledge on the state of Perak, it has also elegantly narrated the integration of the state into the global economy. The book also deals crisply with booms and busts, and political interventions and wars, and in the process the author narrates eloquently not just the lives of the elites, but also of the masses that makeup Perak state.
