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The Kinta Valley Book : Pioneering Malaysia's Modern Development
Kinta Valley in Perak, West Malaysia. The ancient home of the indigenous Senoi, and the realm of the Datoh Panglima Kinta and other Malay chiefs. The Kinta River flows through a dramatic valley of forested hills, limestone outcrops and their wondrous caves. After British intervention, this secluded basin was exploited for the secrets of its earth - tin.
More tin has been produced from Kinta than any other district in the world. Tin was won from the foothills and from the plains; from river beds, limestone caves and granite rock. Though mined in Kinta it was exported as ‘Straits Tin’. Indeed, tin built the towns, the roads and the railways of Kinta, and even paid for the development of the Federated Malay States.
After one century of intensive development and two decades of war, Kinta was transformed into a moon-like landscape with water filled craters and scarred hills, dredged swamps and canalized rivers. At the height of the ‘Emergency’, about half the population of Kinta was resettled into ‘New Villages’ while government and communists fought over their hearts and minds.
This book details the development, from the late 19th Century, of the many charming towns of Kinta. It charts the rise of Ipoh as the ‘Hub of Malaya’ and the vicissitudes of rubber booms and busts. The making of Kinta, once the wealthiest district in British Malaya, epitomizes the bitter-sweet story of the country’s birth into the modern era.
This is highly recommended for all students, researchers and enthusiasts interested in the Kinta Valley and its unusual history.