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Title: In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines by Stanley Karnow ISBN: 0-345-32816-7 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1990 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliant Historical Read
Comment: Karnow has painstakingly crafted a rich, densly fact filled historical biography centering on America's forgotten involvment with it's only true colony, obtained through dubious pretenses from Spain in 1898. The book follows foreign involvement in the Philippines from Ferdinand Magellan's landing in 1521 to the end of the Regan era. Karnow's narrative provides expert and eye-opening insight into the inside workings of the Spanish and American colonial powers and their abusive, beneficial and at times comical consequences on the long-suffering Philippine people. An original book about a unique country with an even more unique history. An excellent read.
Rating: 5
Summary: First Rate Historical Writing
Comment: Stanley Karnow's "In Our Image" does exactly what it purports to do in the subtitle. It is a very complete political history of U.S. involvement in the Phillippines and how American influence has shaped that country. It is, in fact, as much a history of the United States during the same period, giving detailed portraits of important figures like William Howard Taft, who was the first civilian governor of the Phillippines after America won the colony from Spain in the Spanish American War, and who considered the islands to his personal political domain, even after he became President in 1909. Another American who looms large is, of course, General Douglas MacArthur, whose father Arthur fought during the little remembered Phillippine insurrection against American rule at the turn of the last century and who became an icon to the Phillippine people despite his serious personality flaws.
Karnow begins the book with an overview of Phillippine history under Spanish rule that sets the stage quite well. He then describes America's conquest and subsequent torment as it found itself bogged down in a jungle guerilla war quagmire that unfortunately portended the Vietnam War six and a half decades later. Over 100,000 Phillippinos and 4,000 American soldiers died in one of the bloodiest colonial wars ever. Once the islands were finally subdued, however, America became the most benevolent of all colonial powers, granting the Phillippines unprecedented autonomy and zealously undertaking to educate its people and improve its infastructure. After World War Two, the U.S. became the first colonial power to voluntarily relenquish a colony, granting the Phillippnes full independence with a minimum of fuss.
Overall, Karnow's book is a very throroughly researched and highly readable account. It is also very well balanced, and describes America's colonial experience fairly. One comes away from the book conflicted about whether the America's colonial rule in the Phillippines was ultimately a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly, there are plenty of arguments on both sides.
Rating: 5
Summary: Sobering Case Study of Exporting America
Comment: From the valiant death of Ferdinand Magellan in the azure surf of Mactan in 1521 to the fall of Ferdinand Marcos at the hands of Cory Aquino and a disillusioned Reagan administration in 1986, Stanley Karnow, the venerable Asian correspondent for the Washington Post, traces the arc of the Philippines' long, tumultuous relationship with the West. Briskly-paced and engaging, "In Our Image" won the 1990 Pulitzer-prize for history and presents a balanced, yet sobering perspective on America's only traditional colonial experience.
Those looking for anti-American or anti-imperialist fodder will be sorely disappointed by Karnow's generally positive assessment of US policies in the archipelago. He praises the massive investment made in developing and improving the indigenous education system and industrial infrastructure, and frequently notes that American policies were far less exploitative and more politically liberal than any other colonial administration in history. Indeed, he argues that the Washington's voluntary grant of independence to the Philippines was nothing short of revolutionary at the time, and that the islands were actually more subject to American domination after independence in 1946 than before.
On the other hand, those seeking inspiration in how American democracy and industry can be successfully exported to different cultures will be equally disappointed with this case study. Most politicians today, liberal and conservative alike, bristle at the notion that some people or cultures are simply incapable of American-style democracy, and the freedom and justice that comes with it. Karnow, however, makes a strong case that dreams of self-duplication in the Philippines were doomed to fail in a society with an entrenched oligarchy, a powerful tradition of compadre loyalty, and an inherent respect for unabridged power. He notes, for instance, that both Marcos and his prime political opponent, the martyred Benigno Aquino, believed that only an all-powerful head of state in the mold of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew or South Korea's Syngman Rhee would be capable of making any positive difference in the Philippines.
Karnow is a brilliant writer and this book shows him at his best. Each chapter covers large swaths of American and Filipino history, so the narrative is far from comprehensive. Those seeking a detailed understanding of US colonial administration, the bloody and controversial fight against Aquinaldo and the Filipino insurgents, or the epic tale of the Bataan death march and MacArthur's reconquest of the Philippines would be well-advised to seek other, more focused works. However, for an introduction to the political history of the Philippines, her close and unusual relationship with the United States, and the experience of re-creating American institutions in lands unlike our own, this book is not to be missed.
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Title: The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (Modern War Studies (Paperback)) by Brian McAllister Linn ISBN: 0700612254 Publisher: University Press of Kansas Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Looted: The Philippines After the Bases (International Herald Tribune) by Donald Kirk ISBN: 0312227698 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan Pub. Date: 01 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 by Stuart Miller ISBN: 0300030819 Publisher: Yale University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1984 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Philippines (Culture Shock!) by Alfredo Roces, Grace Roces ISBN: 1558686274 Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Philippines' 2 Millennium History by Luzano P. Canlas ISBN: 0741403234 Publisher: Infinity Publishing (PA) Pub. Date: 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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