Professor Karl Hack

Professional biography

I am a Professor of Asian and Imperial History, and have previously been Head of School, Head of History, and Chair of A326 Empire 1492-1975, A328 Empires, and for production of A329 The Making of Welsh History. Other posts have included being Chair of the History Department's Research Strategy Group, and Director of the Ferguson Research Centre for African and Asian Studies (2010-15). Prior to joining the Open University in 2006 I spent a  decade at the Nanyang Technological University, in Singapore, working with schools, on heritage sites such as the Johore Battery, and reviewing the national history curriculum. Many projects, incuding an oral history programme, were undertaken with my colleague Kevin Blackburn. At  its height we had over 500 students a year doing oral history. In 2006, I was enticed away from the tropics by the chance to help produce the Open University's new module on Empires. I found this chance to make empire come alive for several hundred students a year irresistible, and moved to Oxford with my family and our Singapore rescue dog. 

Research interests

Funded Research Projects
2008-10  British Academy funded project entitled ‘New sources and perspectives on the Asian Cold War’. 2012-14 British Academy grant for a project on violence and decolonisation. 2016-20 AHRC collaborative studentship shared with the Imperial War Museum.

Thematic interests:
Decolonisation, insurgency, empire port cities, insurgent and anti-colonial perspectives, justice in decolonising and postcolonial situations, and intelligence and subversion. I have interviewed ex-insurgents up to the level of party Secretary-General, and  recently completed a major history of the Malayan Emergency and its legacies and an international collaboration on Western Military Power and the Transformation of Asia.

Geographical interests:
Empire east of India, and Southeast Asia historical to contemporary; British Empire in general for comparative research on insurgency, port cities, and decolonisation.

Research students
Previous theses completed include Jane Berney, ‘The Contagious Diseases Ordinances of Hong Kong’ (2013) and Richard Duckett, ‘Special Operations Executive in Burma’ (2015),. Recent theses include Thomas Probert on the impact of counteirnsurgency in Malaya on British forces (2020) and Sam Aylett on the Museum of London and Empire (2020).

Public Engagement and Impact

Television and radio
In 2010-2012 I was academic consultant for the BBC series Empire, a major five-part series telling the story of the British Empire in a new, thematic way, and wrote the free wallchart on ‘Selling the Empire’ (download free here), of which more than 50,000 were requested and an online series of lectures on Selling Empire. In 2013 I was interviewed for Radio 4s Terror Through Time series, appeared on Channel News Asia, and did further media work on the SAS in Malaya, and on conflict memory, and I have been interviewed for several other television productions. 

Podcasts. 'The Malayan Emergency' with Phil Wang, Imperial War Museum 'Conflict of Interest', Series 2: https://www.iwm.org.uk/iwm-institute/conflict-of-interest/series-two, April 2022.

Military and Foreign Policy
I have spoken at the Royal United Services Institute, provided an article for their website in 2009, and contributed to the Small Wars Journal. I have given papers at events open to military practitioners and the public in the UK, USA, Malaysia, and Singapore, and worked with military museums.

Public Memory and Commemoration
I have been interviewed for the National Museum of Singapore History Gallery, and publish on war memory. On 16 February 2012 I addressed ‘The Battle for Singapore’ event for more than 200 students and public, at Singapore’s Supreme Court. I testified as expert historical witness on communists in the case of Mohamad Sabu versus Utusan Malaysia, in the Penang High Court, Malaysia, and partnered the Imperial War Museum for a collaborative doctoral studentship.

Select Publications:

Books

Karl Hack, The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and counterinsurgency at the end of empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, December 2021).

Karl Hack, with El Mechat, Marc Frey, Arnaud Nanta, Solofo Randrianja and Jean-Marc Regnault sous la direction de Pierre Brocheux, Les Decolonisations au XXe Siecle: Le Fin Des Empires Européens et Japonais (Paris: Colin Armand: 2012).

Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn, War Memory and the Making of Modern Malaysia and Singapore (Singapore: NUS Press, 2012).

Karl Hack and Jean-Louis Margolin (eds.) with Karine Delaye, Singapore from Temasek to the 21st Century: Reinventing the Global City (Singapore: NUS Press, 2010).

Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn (eds.), Forgotten Captives in Japanese Occupied Asia (London: Routledge, 2008, paperback and ebook 2009).

Karl Hack and Tobias Rettig (eds.), Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2006, paperback and ebook 2008).

Karl Hack and Kevin Blackburn, Did Singapore Have to Fall? (London: Routledge, 2004, paperback 2005).

C.C. Chin and Karl Hack (eds.), Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004).  

Karl Hack, Defence and Decolonisation in Southeast Asia (Richmond: Curzon, 2001).

Special Editions

Karl Hack (Joint editor with Sibylle Scheipers), Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 43, 4 (November 2015), on 'Hostile Populations'.

Karl Hack (Special Editor), Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 39, 4 (November 2011), on ‘Negotiating with the enemy’.

Karl Hack (Joint editor with Geoff Wade), ‘Asian Cold War Symposium’, special edition of the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 40, 3 (October 2009).

Articles and Chapters

Karl Hack, 'Unfinished Decolonisation', Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth Studies, 47, 5 (2019), 818-50.

Karl Hack, ' "Devils that suck the blood of the Malayan People": The Case for Post-Revisionist Analysis of Counterinsurgency Violence, War in History  25, 2 (2018).

Karl Hack, 'Detention, Deportation and Resettlement: British Counteinrsurgency and Malaya's Rural Chinese, 1948-1960', Journal of Imperial and Commowenalth History  43, 5 (2015), 611-40.

Karl Hack, ‘ “Between two terrors”: People’s History and the Malayan Emergency’, in Hannah Gurman (ed.), A People’s History of Insurgency (New York: Free Press, 2013).

Karl Hack, ‘Framing the History of Singapore’, in Nicholas Tarling (ed.), Studying Singapore's Past: C.M. Turnbull and the History of Modern Singapore (Singapore: NUS Press, 2012).

Teaching interests

At the Open University (2006-), I have provided a wide range of teaching, mainly but not exclusively on extra-European and world history.

• Course team chair for  presentation of A326 Empire 1492-1975 from 2009-16, having been co-chair during production. Author of units on Analysing empire, decolonisaition in India, Sex and empire, and empire overview and empire impacts.
• Chair for produciton of a new Empire 1400 to present module over 2021-2023.
• Chair for the production of A329: The Making of Welsh History, using innovative new direct authoring methods.
• Course team member for A312 Total War and Social Change: Europe 1914-1955, and AXR312, the related summer school.
• Contributing author on AD281 Introducing Global Heritage.
• Contributing author on A327 Europe 1914-89: War, Peace, Modernity.
• Contributing author on A225 The British Isles and the Modern World, 1789-1914,. 
• Course team member on the presentation team for A825 and A826, the taught and dissertation modules on the M.A in Local and Regional History

For OpenLearn, I provided the A326 taster material 'How do Empires Work'.

At the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (1996-2006), I taught a broad range of history and social studies modules, including on Singapore history, Singapore studies, Malaysian History, Southeast Asian history, European history, Great Power Relations, and Political Thought.