Penang

"Which city once had the smallest trolley-bus in the world? Where do you find the first funicular railway in Southeast Asia? How do you recognize a trolley-bus pole? Where is Tramway Road?" "With over 100 old photographs, maps and illustrations, this book gives an overview of the various forms of public transport used in George Town from 1880s to 1963, and the role this transport played in the development of the growth of George Town and Penang." "Penang was one of the first urban centres in Southeast Asia to operate steam trams, horse trams, electric trams and trolleybuses. When the Municipal Commission established its own electric supply, it took over the tram service and started the electric trams in George Town in 1906. This gave the local population excellent public transport around George Town, with one line going up to Ayer Itam. In the late 1920s, the Municipality replaced trams with trolley-buses, experimenting for a while with re-conditioned double-deckers from London Transport!" "The Municipality also operated two railways - firstly, the Penang Hill Railway which was considered an engineering marvel when it was first built, and secondly, the electric railway which transported supplies and tin ingots for Penang's foremost smelting works."--BOOK JACKET.

Most of the chapters in this volume were first presented at the Penang Outlook Forum 2009, held on 1-2 June 2009 at the E&O Hotel in Penang. A few others have been added to complement those at the conference. At present, comprehensive and authoritative studies on Penang's current economic conditions are a rarity. This book is thus an effort to correct that lack. Evidence does suggest that the state had not been doing well in the first half of the first decade of the new millennium. Being a small state situated relatively far away from the administrative capital of Putrajaya, Penang has to be economically innovative if it is to regain its place at the forefront of Malaysian development. The relationship between the state and the federal government remains a vital matter.

The articles collected here trace the intellectual journey of Christian Giordano, head of the Social Anthropology Institute at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. The reader will be transported to places Giordano has explored, loved, or merely visited, from Sicily to Malaysia, from Switzerland to Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Each article illustrates a facet of his work. The journey starts with biographical sketches and continues through different fields of Political Anthropology (Citizenship, Multiculturalism, Ethnicity, Rural Studies, Trust, Postcolonial Studies, Honour). It ends with reflections on the use and abuse of Anthropology.