100 Best Philippines History Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best philippines history books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

Featuring recommendations from Tim O'Reilly, Bill Gates, Tony Robbins, and 60 other experts.
1

Tools of Titans

The latest groundbreaking book from Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek.
 
From the author:
 
“For the last two years, I’ve interviewed nearly two hundred world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. The guests range from super celebs (Jamie Foxx, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.) and athletes (icons of powerlifting, gymnastics, surfing, etc.) to legendary Special Operations commanders and black-market biochemists. For most of my guests, it’s the...
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Tony RobbinsTim is a brilliant thinker. The way he approaches mastery is inspiring in many ways. His latest book is no exception. What I loved about Tools of Titans is that it distills key tactics, routines and habits of the ultra-successful in actionable ways that anyone can take advantage of. Highly recommended. Every chapter is a valuable lesson. (Source)

Marvin LiaoMy list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make... (Source)

Kamal RavikantI’m reading Tools of Titans which is just amazing. (Source)

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2
A lucid translation of the well-known Taoist classic by a leading scholar-now in a Shambhala Pocket Library edition.
Written more than two thousand years ago, the Tao Teh Ching, or -The Classic of the Way and Its Virtue, - is one of the true classics of the world of spiritual literature. Traditionally attributed to the legendary -Old Master, - Lao Tzu, the Tao Teh Ching teaches that the qualities of the enlightened sage or ideal ruler are identical with those of the perfected individual. Today, Lao Tzu's words are as useful in mastering the arts of leadership in...
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Tim O'ReillyThe Way of Life According to Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching), translated by Witter Bynner. My personal religious philosophy, stressing the rightness of what is, if only we can accept it. Most people who know me have heard me quote from this book. "Seeing as how nothing is outside the vast, wide-meshed net of heaven, who is there to say just how it is cast?" (Source)

Naval RavikantIn the philosophy side, I’ve been rereading the Tao Te Ching. (Source)

Jack DorseyQ: What are the books that had a major influence on you? Or simply the ones you like the most. : Tao te Ching, score takes care of itself, between the world and me, the four agreements, the old man and the sea...I love reading! (Source)

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3
From ancient Malay settlements to Spanish colonization, the American occupation and beyond, A History of the Philippines recasts various Philippine narratives with an eye for the layers of colonial and post-colonial history that have created this diverse and fascinating population. A History of the Philippines begins with the pre-Westernized Philippines in the 16th century and continues through the 1899 Philippine-American War, the nation's relationship with the United States’ controlling presence, culminating with its independence in 1946 and two ongoing insurgencies, one... more

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4

The Secret (The Secret, #1)

The Secret’s 10th Anniversary Edition includes a new foreword by Rhonda Byrne, and 10 of the most life-changing insights she’s had over the last 10 years of practicing and living The Secret every day. The 10 insights alone will accelerate your understanding and mastery of the law of attraction. less
Recommended by Ntwana Kasi., Woman In Purpose, and 2 others.

Ntwana Kasi.@Sibongubuhle_N Don't you have pdf of it i love this book (Source)

Woman In Purpose@Anele_Nks Best book ever! (Source)

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5
"A brilliant, coherent social and political overview spanning three turbulent centuries."--San Francisco Chronicle

Stanley Karnow won the Pulitzer Prize for this account of America's imperial experience in the Philippines. In a swiftly paced, brilliantly vivid narrative, Karnow focuses on the relationship that has existed between the two nations since the United States acquired the country from Spain in 1898, examining how we have sought to remake the Philippines "in our image," an experiment marked from the outset by blundering, ignorance, and mutual misunderstanding.
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6
On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected U.S. troops slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty rugged miles to rescue 513 POWs languishing in a hellish camp, among them the last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March. A recent prison massacre by Japanese soldiers elsewhere in the Philippines made the stakes impossibly high and left little time to plan the complex operation.

In Ghost Soldiers Hampton Sides vividly re-creates this daring raid, offering a minute-by-minute narration that unfolds alongside intimate portraits of the prisoners...
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7

Cryptonomicon

With this extraordinary first volume in an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine...
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Marc AndreessenThe Sovereign Individual—written 20 years ago, this is the most thought provoking book on the unfolding nature of the 21st Century that I’ve yet read. It’s packed with ideas on every page, many that are now fast becoming conventional wisdom, and many that are still heretical. Two related books to read are The Twilight of Sovereignty and Cryptonomicon. (Source)

Risto SiilasmaaThe one book on Siilasmaa's list is this fantasy offering from Neal Stephenson. The novel relates two parallel stories, one about an elite group of code-breakers in World War II, and another set in the present day, about two grandchildren of members of the group trying to track down a previously unknown – and rumored to be unbreakable – Nazi code. The book's subject matter resonates with current... (Source)

Nick HarkawayCryptonomicon is a real humdinger of a novel. Stephenson is a hugely enjoyable writer of action and comedy, I find him a joy to read. (Source)

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8
Before World War II, Manila was a slice of America in Asia, populated with elegant neoclassical buildings, spacious parks, and home to thousands of U.S. servicemen and business executives who enjoyed the relaxed pace of the tropics. The outbreak of the war, however, brought an end to the good life. General Douglas MacArthur, hoping to protect the Pearl of the Orient, declared the Philippine capital an open city and evacuated his forces. The Japanese seized Manila on January 2, 1942, rounding up and interning thousands of Americans.


MacArthur, who escaped soon after to...
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Recommended by Ben Lorica, and 1 others.

Ben LoricaI just finished the new book on the Battle of Manila: @jamesmscott3 did a masterful job piecing together archival sources and oral accounts into a great book on some of the most violent events during WW II https://t.co/cIohFTJ7Pm https://t.co/d2QIIr7xuu (Source)

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9
Who are you? When you start to explore this question, you find out how elusive it really is. Are you a physical body? A collection of experiences and memories? A partner in a relationship? Each time you consider these aspects of yourself, you realize that there is much more to you than any of these can define.

In The Untethered Soulnow a New York Times bestsellerspiritual teacher Michael Singer explores the question of who we are and arrives at the conclusion that our identity is to be found in our consciousness, the fact of our ability to...
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Deepak Chopraeval(ez_write_tag([[250,250],'theceolibrary_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_5',164,'0','1'])); In the book The Untethered Soul, Michael A. Singer takes you step-by-step through the process of Gyana, the yoga of the Intellect, to the Source. Moreover, he does it with elegant simplicity. Read this book carefully, and you will get more than a glimpse of eternity. (Source)

Ray KurzweilEast is East and West is West, but Michael A. Singer bridges these two great traditions in a radiant treatise on how to succeed in life from our spiritual quest to our everyday tribulations. Freud said that life was composed of love and work. With great eloquence, wit, and compelling logic, Singer’s brilliant book completes this thought by showing them to be two poles of the same selfless... (Source)

James AltucherMichael moved to an empty patch of forest, set up his trailer, and started to meditate in the early 70s. He surrendered to whatever happened in his life. Well...what ended up happening is that he created a multi-billion dollar company. His book is about the spiritual beauty of surrender. And how that can go hand in hand with financial success. I was so astonished by the book that I contacted him... (Source)

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10

History of the Filipino People

Comprehensive overview of Philippine History including Pre-Spanish life and culture, Spanish rule, the Filipino -American War, American rule, and the campaign for Independence, among other subjects. less

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Don't have time to read the top Philippines History books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

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  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
11

Little Fires Everywhere

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the...
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Recommended by Reese Witherspoon, and 1 others.

Reese WitherspoonY’all! I’m so excited to tell you that @kerrywashington and I will be bringing #LittleFiresEverywhere to the screen together ! I love this beautiful book about motherhood and I can’t wait to finally collaborate with one of my favorite actresses. https://t.co/98pq64llMU (Source)

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12
A pathbreaking history of the United States' overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire

We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire," exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories--the islands, atolls, and archipelagos--this country has governed and inhabited?

In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten...
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Recommended by Asad Abukhalil, Mike Gravel, and 2 others.

Asad AbukhalilFor those who want to understand the historical agony of Puerto Rico and the account of US colonial savagery there, read the brilliant book by Daniel Immerwahr, “How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States”. (Source)

Mike Gravel@dimmerwahr It's a great book! (Source)

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13

Manila, My Manila

A 'Pop' History for Manilans

In early 1988, then Mayor Mel Lopez invited Nick Joaquin to write a popular history of Manila that young Manilans would enjoy. The city's poet laureate--whose entire body of work sings of Manila as Homer sang of Troy and Virgil of Rome--complied with a will. The first
edition of Manila, My Manila (1990) was distributed exclusively to the city's schools. This hardcover gift edition finally brings Joaquin's celebration of his beloved city to readers throughout the world.
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14

The Philippines

A Past Revisited

This book is Constantino's attempt at a major breakthrough in Philippine historiography: he looks at the oppression of the Filipino masses from earliest time to 1941 and the struggle of men like himself to crack through the stereotypes hitherto propagated by Spaniards and Americans about the Filipinos. less

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15
Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put down."

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this...
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16

This book presents a sixteenth-century Philippine ethnography based on contemporaneous sources. It does not attempt to reconstruct that society by consideration of present Philippine societies, or of features believed to be common to all Austronesian peoples. Nor does it seek similarities with neighboring cultures in Southeast Asia, though the raw data presented should be of use to scholars who might wish to do so. Rather, it seeks to answer the question: What did the Spaniards actually say about the Filipino people when they first met them? It is hoped that the answer to that question...

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18
In 1937, the swath of the globe east from India to the Pacific Ocean enclosed half the world’s population, all save a fraction enduring under some form of colonialism. Japan’s onslaught into China that year unleashed a tidal wave of events that fundamentally transformed this region and killed about twenty-five million people. From just two nation states with real sovereignty, Thailand and Japan, and two with compromised sovereignty, China and Mongolia, the region today encompasses at least nineteen major sovereign nations. This extraordinary World War II narrative vividly describes in... more

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19

Enemy of the State (Mitch Rapp, #16)

Mitch Rapp returns in the #1 New York Times bestselling series in this timely thriller as a Saudi prince is discovered using his fortunes to fund ISIS, re-opening secrets about the Saudi government's involvement in 9/11--secrets which the United States tried to bury.
After 9/11, the United States made one of the most secretive and dangerous deals in its history. The evidence against the powerful Saudis who coordinated the attack would be buried. In return, King Faisal would promise to keep the oil flowing and deal with the conspirators in his...
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20

The One-Straw Revolution

Fukuoka demonstrates how the way we look at farming influences the way we look at health, the school, nature, nutrition, spiritual health and life itself. He joins the healing of the land to the process of purifying the human spirit and proposes a way of life and a way of farming in which such healing can take place. less

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Don't have time to read the top Philippines History books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

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  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
21

In the Presence of My Enemies

Soon after September 11, the news media stepped up its coverage of the plight of Martin and Gracia Burnham, the missionary couple captured and held hostage in the Philippine jungle by terrorists with ties to Osama Bin Laden. After a year of captivity, and a violent rescue that resulted in Martin's death, the world watched Gracia Burnham return home in June 2002 with a bullet wound in the leg and amazing composure.

In this riveting personal account, Burnham tells the real story behind the news about their harrowing ordeal, about how it affected their relationship with each other and...
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22
60 Years in Space with NASA
Journey through the U.S. space program’s fascinating pictorial history

On October 1, 1958, the world’s first civilian space agency opened for business as an emergency response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik a year earlier. Within a decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, universally known as NASA, had evolved from modest research teams experimenting with small converted rockets into one of the greatest technological and managerial enterprises ever known, capable of sending men to the moon aboard gigantic...
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23

Looking Back

Hindsight is the lowest form of intelligence–except for historians. In this handy collection of Ambeth Ocampo’s “Looking Back” column pieces, the popular historian digs deep and looks back carefully at events, places and important people who make up the country’s history. less

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24
The story of the Battle of Saipan has it all. Marines at war: on Pacific beaches, in hellish volcanic landscapes in places like Purple Heart Ridge, Death Valley, and Hell's Pocket, under a commander known as "Howlin' Mad." Naval combat: carriers battling carriers from afar, fighters downing Japanese aircraft, submarines sinking carriers. Marine-army rivalry. Fanatical Japanese defense and resistance. A turning point of the Pacific War. James Hallas reconstructs the full panorama of Saipan in a way that no recent chronicler of the battle has done. In its comprehensiveness, attention to detail,... more

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25

El Filibusterismo

El Filibusterismo (The Subversive) is the second novel by Jose Rizal (1861-1896), national hero of the Philippines. Like its predecessor, the better-known Noli Me Tangere, the Fili was written in Castilian while Rizal was traveling and studying in Europe. It was published in Ghent in 1891 and later translated into English, German, French, Japanese, Tagalog, Ilonggo, and other languages. A nationalist novel by an author who has been called the first Filipino, its nature as a social document of the late-nineteenth-century Philippines is often emphasized. For many years, copies of the Fili were... more

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26

How Asia Works

“Pithy, well-written and intellectually vigorous . . . Studwell’s thesis is bold, his arguments persuasive, and his style pugnacious. It adds up to a highly readable and important book.” —Financial Times

In the 1980s and 1990s many in the West came to believe in the myth of an East-Asian economic miracle, with countries seen as not just development prodigies but as a unified bloc, culturally and economically similar, and inexorably on the rise. In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills extensive research into the economics of nine countries—Japan, South Korea,...
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Recommended by Bill Gates, and 1 others.

Bill GatesStudwell produces compelling answers to two of the greatest questions in development economics: How did countries like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China achieve sustained, high growth? And why have so few other countries managed to do so? His answers come in the form of a simple—and yet hard to execute—formula: (1) create conditions for small farmers to thrive, (2) use the proceeds from... (Source)

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27
Filipino Americans have a long and rich history with and within the United States, and they are currently the second largest Asian group in the country. However, very little is known about how their historical and contemporary relationship with America may shape their psychological experiences. The most insidious psychological consequence of their historical and contemporary experiences is colonial mentality or internalized oppression. Some common manifestations of this phenomenon are described below: Skin-whitening products are used often by Filipinos in the Philippines to make their skins... more

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28
Hailed by "The New York Times Book Review" as a "grippingly told" story of "power and relevance," here is the true, untold account of the first American women to prove their mettle under combat conditions. Later, during three years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Japanese, they also demonstrated their ability to survive. Filled with the thoughts and impressions of the women who lived it, "every page of this history is fascinating" (The Washington Post). "We Band of Angels"

In the fall of 1941, the Philippines was a gardenia-scented paradise for the American Army and Navy...
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30
An approved textbook at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since publication, Newt Scamander's masterpiece has entertained wizarding families through the generations. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is an indispensable introduction to the magical beasts of the Wizarding World. Scamander's years of travel and research have created a tome of unparalleled importance. Some of the beasts will be familiar to readers of the Harry Potter books - the Hippogriff, the Basilisk, the Hungarian Horntail ... Others will surprise even the most ardent amateur Magizoologist. This is an... more

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Don't have time to read the top Philippines History books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

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  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
31
This book is about Josephine Bracken's legitimate origin and her marriage to Jose Rizal. Authored by her great grandson, it is the first biography to come to her defense amidst allegations by historians that she was illegitimate and not lawfully wedded to the national hero. It presents Ms. Bracken's life before, during and after her brief but intense romance with Rizal who called her a wandering swallow (errante golondrina). How she evolves into one of our history's unsung heroines is the fascinating plot of this narrative. less

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32
The riveting story of Ferdinand Magellan’s historic 60,000-mile ocean voyage

“Prodigious research, sure-footed prose and vivid descriptions make for a thoroughly satisfying account... it is all here in the wondrous detail, a first-rate historical page turner.”— New York Times Book Review

Ferdinand Magellan's daring circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century was a three-year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. Now in Over the Edge of the World, prize-winning biographer and...
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35
One of the greatest Pacific war stories never told.

On April 4, 1943, ten American prisoners of war and two Filipino convicts--nicknamed the "Davao Dozen"--executed a daring escape from one of Japan's most notorious prison camps. Called the "greatest story of the war in the Pacific" by the War Department in 1944, the full account has never been told--until now. A product of years of in-depth research, John D. Lukacs's gripping description of the escape brings this remarkable tale to life. In this remarkable contribution to the realm of WWII POW narrative, Lukacs describes...
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39
On September 15, 1944, U.S. Marines landed on a small island in the Central Pacific called Peleliu, as a prelude to the liberation of the Philippines. Among the first wave of Marines that hit the beach that day was 22-year-old George Peto.

Growing up in on a farm in Ohio, George had always preferred exploring to being indoors. This made school a challenge, but his hunting, fishing and trapping skills helped put food on the family's table. As a teenager living in a rough area he got into regular brawls, and he found holding down a job hard because of his wanderlust. After a...
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40

Rizal Without the Overcoat

This book is a collection of essays from Ambeth R. Ocampo’s newspaper column “Looking Back” that began in the Philippine Daily Globe and later moved to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He presents a readable and painless introduction to Jose Rizal and offers fascinating insights, lively anecdotes, academic intrigue, and little-known facts about the hero as human. Investigating Rizal’s own writings - his diaries, letters, and other papers – Ocampo attempts to strip the countless myths and rumors that surround the national hero. less

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Don't have time to read the top Philippines History books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
41
Billed as the "biggest, most useful Red Book ever," the Deluxe Edition measures 7 x 10 inches and has 1,504 pages. The larger size and increased page count combined make the Deluxe Edition five times bigger than the regular-edition Red Book. It prices 8,018 items in up to 12 grades each, with 50,205 individual values and 16,667 auction records covering circulated, Mint State, and Proof coinage. The book is illustrated with 5,753 images.



The Deluxe Edition covers American coinage from New England colonial times to the modern day--half cents through $20 gold double...
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42

Philippines

"The Philippines, a nation composed of thousands of islands, has a vibrant past. Readers learn what the country is like today, from its history to its festival traditions, culinary history, lifestyle, government, and economy."--Publisher's description. less

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43
In this remarkable WWII story by New York Times bestselling author John R. Bruning, a renegade American pilot fights against all odds to rescue his family--imprisoned by the Japanese--and revolutionizes modern warfare along the way.

From the knife fights and smuggling runs of his youth to his fiery days as a pioneering naval aviator, Paul Irving "Pappy" Gunn played by his own set of rules and always survived on his wits and fists. But when he fell for a conservative Southern belle, her love transformed him from a wild and reckless airman to a cunning entrepreneur...
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45
In the spring of 1974, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese Army made world headlines when he emerged from the Philippine jungle after a thirty-year ordeal. Hunted in turn by American troops, the Philippine police, hostile islanders, and successive Japanese search parties, Onoda had skillfully outmaneuvered all his pursuers, convinced that World War II was still being fought and that one day his fellow soldiers would return victorious. This account of those years is an epic tale of the will to survive that offers a rare glimpse of man's invincible spirit, resourcefulness, and... more

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46

Small Island

Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised as a farmer's daughter, befriends Gilbert, and later Hortense, with innocence and courage, until the unexpected arrival of her husband, Bernard, who returns from combat with issues of his own to resolve.

Told in these four voices, Small Island is a courageous novel...
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47
"Not for the faint-hearted, Lon Po Po (Grandmother Wolf), is a tale of a menacing danger and courage....(Young's) command of page composition and his sensitive use of color give the book a visual force that matches the strength of the story and stands as one of the illustrator's best efforts." --Booklist"Absolutely splendid." -- Kirkuse Reviews. "An extraordinary and powerful book." -- Publisher's Weekly less

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48
In the Highest Degree Tragic tells the heroic story of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet’s sacrifice defending the Dutch East Indies from the Japanese in the first three months of the Pacific War. Donald M. Kehn Jr.’s comprehensive narrative history of the operations involving multiple ships and thousands of men dramatically depicts the chaotic nature of these battles. His research has uncovered evidence of communications failures, vessels sinking hundreds of miles from where they had been reported lost, and entire complements of men simply disappearing off the face of the earth.

Kehn...
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49
When people hear of Maui, they mainly think of the island named after him in the Hawaiian archipelago. In Polynesia, Maui is best known as a superman, a demigod who performed incredible feats of strength like fishing up islands and capturing the sun. His timeless stories are still shared throughout the Pacific Islands as they have been for countless generations. Some islands claim him to be a god, others a semi-divine man, but many count this bold adventurer as an ancestor. For more than two centuries, western scholars have worked to record the tales of this mythic hero from around the... more

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50
These "101 stories" are by a historian who here makes palatable information on contexts, incidents and personalities which form the history of the Philippine Revolution of the 1890s. Light is shed on events surrounding the Declaration of Independence of June 1898 and the subsequent (violent) US Occupation and colonisation. Several stories focus on the role and personality of Emilio Aguinaldo, titular President of the Philippines 1898-1901. Black-and-white illustrations. less

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Don't have time to read the top Philippines History books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
  • Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
  • Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
51
The book concedes that the Revolution of 1896 was a national movement caused mainly by oppressive feudal conditions and the abuses of Spanish friars and officials. The organization responsible for the uprising was the secret nationalist society called Katipunan. In Cesar A. Majul’s words, “It was the tyranny of the government as experienced by the masses, and the realization on the part of a few Filipino leaders that the purposes of government were being perverted by the interests of a small class, that were directly responsible for the birth and growth of the Katipunan.” The... more

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55
The heroic story of eleven American POWs who defied certain death in World War II—As Good as Dead is an unforgettable account of the Palawan Massacre survivors and their daring escape.  

In late 1944, the Allies invaded the Japanese-held Philippines, and soon the end of the Pacific War was within reach. But for the last 150 American prisoners of war still held on the island of Palawan, there would be no salvation. After years of slave labor, starvation, disease, and torture, their worst fears were about to be realized. On December 14, with machine guns trained on...
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57
"ONCE THERE WAS A HERO WHO DREAMT OF FREEDOM AND EQUALITY...'

Raised by a hardworking father and a well-educated mother, young Jose lived a happy childhood. He grew up in a large and wealthy family—with one brother and nine sisters keeping him company, while his mother taught him how to read and write.

During the Spanish colonial rule, many of the locals suffered from discrimination, but Jose knew none of that. Until one day, a family scandal broke. His mother was taken away for a crime he knew she did not commit. Watching his mother being dragged away, Jose...
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58
A forgotten account, written in the immediate aftermath of World War II, which vividly portrays the valor, sacrifice, suffering, and liberation of the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor through the eyes of one survivor.

The personal memoir of Colonel David L. Hardee, first drafted at sea from April-May 1945 following his liberation from Japanese captivity, is a thorough treatment of his time in the Philippines. A career infantry officer, Hardee fought during the Battle of Bataan as executive officer of the Provisional Air Corps Regiment. Captured in April 1942 after the...
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60
Any vision of the future can claim relevance only if it is moored in the past. To pause and reflect upon the design developments that have shaped our mundane lives in the last century is a necessary step in claiming our design futures. Through a design and style retrospection, we appreciate the divers ways in which design practitioners and their products of creativity respond to the givens imposed by the Philippine situations - its socio-cultural environment, political circumstances, geophysical climate and ecology, and the rigors of technology and economy - to transform the texture of... more

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Don't have time to read the top Philippines History books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

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  • Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
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61
During the fateful quarter century leading up to World War I, the climax of a century of rapid, unprecedented change, a privileged few enjoyed Olympian luxury as the underclass was “heaving in its pain, its power, and its hate.” In The Proud Tower, Barbara W. Tuchman brings the era to vivid life: the decline of the Edwardian aristocracy; the Anarchists of Europe and America; Germany and its self-depicted hero, Richard Strauss; Diaghilev’s Russian ballet and Stravinsky’s music; the Dreyfus Affair; the Peace Conferences in The Hague; and the enthusiasm and tragedy of Socialism,... more

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62
Antonio de Morga's History of the Philippines is one of the most important works ever written on the Spanish colonization of the Philippines in the sixteenth century and describes in fascinating detail the climate and peoples of the islands. The history also includes accounts of exploration in the Philippines by the English privateer Thomas Candish as well as those of Dutch explorers. less

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63
For almost 20 years, more than 200 reels of microfilmed Japanese naval records remained in the custody of the U.S. Naval History Division, virtually untouched. This unique book draws on those sources and others to tell the story of the Pacific War from the viewpoint of the Japanese. Former Marine Corps officer and Asian scholar Paul Dull focuses on the major surface engagements of the war--Coral Sea, Midway, the crucial Solomons campaign, and the last-ditch battles in the Marianas and Philippines. Also included are detailed track charts and a selection of Japanese photographs of major vessels... more

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64
Tears in the Darkness is an altogether new look at World War II that exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides.

For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history.

The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make...
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65
On an otherwise normal morning at a private school for girls, a 15-year-old student is picked up by soldiers and sent to a military camp, becoming one of the thousands of political prisoners arrested under Ferdinand Marcos' repressive regime in the 1970s. A year earlier, Marcos had declared martial law and a military government effectively took over the Philippines. After her release, author Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein was required to report to camp, her probation lasting five years. She was never charged and was never told why she was arrested. The effects of prison and the long-term probation... more

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66
Greek Tragedies, Volume I contains Aeschylus’s “Agamemnon,” translated by Richmond Lattimore; Aeschylus’s “Prometheus Bound,” translated by David Grene; Sophocles’s “Oedipus the King,” translated by David Grene; Sophocles’s “Antigone,” translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff; and Euripides’s “Hippolytus,” translated by David Grene.

Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert management of eminent...
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67
In the oppressive midnight of Martial Law, a band of knights investigate a religious artifact in the festive town of Barang, Bulacan...

...Where, beneath the banderitas, an ancient evil awaits.
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68
"Most of the 73 Katipunan documents in this volume were seized by the Guardia Civil in Manila in 1896-1897 and locked away for decades in the Spanish military archives. Transcribed and published here for the first time are two versions of the Katipunan's founding statutes of 1892; more than twenty records of the Supreme Council; initiation rituals; draft contributions to KALAYAAN, the KKK newspaper; and letters of Andres Bonifacio and Emilio Jacinto. Also included here are a few better known documents, such as Bonifacio's "Decalougue," Jacinto's "Kartilya," the Acta de Tejeros, and the Naik... more

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69
Join Chloe, who is half-Filipino and living in New York, as she learns about different ways respect is shown in the Filipino culture. less

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70
"The post-Ramos coup attempts did not have the same political magnitude and intensity as those which went on during the years of Cory Aquino in power in the 1980s. This is partly why putting the pieces together felt like writing a pos-mortem account. The old patterns were evident, starting from President Joseph Estrada's ouster in 2001 and up until the fiasco at the Manila Peninsula takeover in 2007. As I bring it to a closure, I still see the optimism of a military being professional again. I have also come to conclude that what has made the armed forces survive as an institution, and truly... more

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71

A Question of Heroes

Through his critical essays on ten key figures in Philippine history, Nick Joaquin provides a fresh point of view on Philippine heroes and their role in the Philippine revolutionary tradition. less

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72
For the past fifty years, Rolling Stone has been a leading voice in journalism, cultural criticism, and—above all—music. This landmark book documents the magazine’s rise to prominence as the voice of rock and roll and a leading showcase for era-defining photography. From the 1960s to the present day, the book offers a decade-by-decade exploration of American music and history. Interviews with rock legends—Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Kurt Cobain, Bruce Springsteen, and more—appear alongside iconic photographs by Baron Wolman, Annie Leibovitz, Mark Seliger, and other leading image-makers.... more

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73
A beautiful, comprehensive, and evocative cookbook on a relatively undiscovered cuisine.

Despite the Philippines' location right in the middle of Southeast Asia, most people know very little about the country and even less about the cuisine. For Filipinos, food is more than a pleasurable pursuit; it is the cultural language. It can be seen through the prism of its unique and colorful history, with influences from Malaysia, Spain, China, Mexico, and the US adding to the cuisine's rich texture.

Divided into thirteen chapters—Dipping sauces; Breakfast; Soups; Everyday food;...
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74
In 1937, the swath of the globe east from India to the Pacific Ocean enclosed half the world’s population. Japan’s onslaught into China that year unleashed a tidal wave of events that fundamentally transformed this region and killed about twenty-five million people. This extraordinary World War II narrative vividly portrays the battles across this entire region and links those struggles on many levels with their profound twenty-first-century legacies. In this first volume of a trilogy, award-winning historian Richard B. Frank draws on rich archival research and recently discovered documentary... more

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75
The book exposes one of the biggest deceptions ever foisted on the Philippine nation, the total domination of our telecommunications industry by foreigners and its deliberate concealment. This is a grave violation of the Philippine Constitution, a fact that was ignored by the Aquino administration when it chose to side with foreign interests instead of following a Supreme Court order to stop the foreign control of a strategic public utility. While claiming to be majority-owned by Filipinos, the reality is that the biggest stockholder of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., which operates... more

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76
The American 345th Bomb Group--the Air Apaches--was legendary in the war against Japan. The first fully trained and fully equipped group sent to the South Pacific, the 345th racked up a devastating score against the enemy. Armed to the teeth with machine guns and fragmentation bombs, and flying their B-25s at impossibly low altitudes--often below fifty feet--the pilots and air crews strafed and bombed enemy installations and shipping with a fury that helped cripple Japan. One of the sharpest tools in the U.S. arsenal, the 345th performed essential missions during Gen. Douglas MacArthur's... more

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77

Kuwentong Bayan: Noong Panahon Ng Hapon

Everyday Life In A Time Of War

In English and Tagalog. The book provides true stories by individuals who lived through the atrocities of war in the Philippines. Japanese occupation, Pacific War, World War II memoirs. Very large/heavy book. With photos and maps. less

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78
Half Filipino but raised in an American household, Deborah Francisco Douglas had always longed to know more about her Filipino heritage. So when a thick government-issued envelope arrived at her door announcing her assignment to the Philippines as a Peace Corps Volunteer, she snatched the opportunity and set out on a journey of self-discovery, travel, and adventure.

Arriving in the mountain town of Baguio City, Philippines, she was introduced to a life of obnoxious roosters, bucket baths, and kids shouting her name every time she walked down the street. Despite her attempts to get...
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79
During World War II more than one thousand Filipinas were kidnapped by the Imperial Japanese Army. Lolas’ House tells the stories of sixteen surviving Filipino “comfort women.”

M. Evelina Galang enters into the lives of the women at Lolas’ House, a community center in metro Manila. She accompanies them to the sites of their abduction and protests with them at the gates of the Japanese embassy. Each woman gives her testimony, and even though the women relive their horror at each telling, they offer their stories so that no woman anywhere should suffer wartime rape and...
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80

Enrique El Negro

When the Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan "discovered" the Philippines for the Spanish crown in the 16th century, he was accompanied by a slave named Enrique, who could communicate with the inhabitants of the islands that Magellan visited. Little is known of this slave except that he existed. However, a local historian has come up with a still-controversial theory that the slave Enrique was from what is now known as the Philippines, and therefore, was the man who first circled the globe (and not the Spaniard Sebastian Elcano).

This historical fiction, as told by Enrique, is...
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81
TADHANA The History of the Filipino People COMPLETE Vol 2 Set

Description : Complete Set of Tadhana Volume 2 books by Ferdinand Marcos, published in 1979. This Set Includes the following:

1. Volume 2: Formation of the National Community (1565-1896)
2. Volume 2 Part 1: Encounter (1565-1663)
3. Volume 2 Part 2: Reaction (1663-1765)
4. Volume 2 Part 3: Transition (1765-1815)

Contains lots of colorful illustrations and plates.
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82
From the New York Times bestselling coauthor of A Higher Call, an up-close-and-personal account of the Alamo Scouts in World War II.

Determined to retake the Philippines ever since his ignominious flight from the islands in 1942, General Douglas MacArthur needed a first-rate intelligence-gathering unit. Out of thousands, only 138 soldiers were chosen: the best, toughest, and most fit men the army had to offer. Their task: silently slip onto Japanese-held islands, stalk through the thick jungles, and assess enemy locations, conditions, morale, and...
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83

Culture and History

A ground-breaking treatise by National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin on how Philippine history and Filipino identity have been shaped by the tools of our native and adopted cultures. Learn about feminism and beaterios, and the evolution from bamboo houses to stone churches. less

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84

Goyo

Ang Batang Heneral

Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral is a coming-of-age story about how a young, overconfident boy learns to accept his own mortality and, more importantly, his duties as a true soldier of the Republic.” – Jerrold Tarog, director of Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral
History lessons have ingrained in Filipinos the heroism of the boy general Gregorio del Pilar, famed for the Battle in Tirad Pass. But the ideals that spur a revolution are as complex as the motivations of this young man to pursue greatness.
This compendium brings together the process of making the movie from its director, producers and...
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85
Rock Solid is a landmark book detailing the Philippines' historic legal victory against China over the South China Sea.

Seasoned Filipino journalist Marites Vitug pored over transcripts and documents from arbitral hearings at The Hague, and interviewed key personalities involved in the maritime case.
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86
Is race only about the color of your skin? In The Latinos of Asia, Anthony Christian Ocampo shows that what "color" you are depends largely on your social context. Filipino Americans, for example, helped establish the Asian American movement and are classified by the U.S. Census as Asian. But the legacy of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines means that they share many cultural characteristics with Latinos, such as last names, religion, and language. Thus, Filipinos' "color"—their sense of connection with other racial groups—changes depending on their social context.

The...
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87

The Spanish Seaborne Empire

The Spanish empire in America was the first of the great seaborne empires of western Europe; it was for long the richest and the most formidable, the focus of envy, fear, and hatred. Its haphazard beginning dates from 1492; it was to last more than three hundred years before breaking up in the early nineteenth century in civil wars between rival generals and "liberators."

Available now for the first time in paperback is J. H. Parry's classic assessment of the impact of Spain on the Americas. Parry presents a broad picture of the conquests of Cortès and Pizarro and of the economic...
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88
From the bestselling author of Hero Found comes the incredible true story of one of the greatest military rescues of all time, the 1945 World War II prison camp raid at Los Baños in the Philippines—a tale of daring, courage, and heroism that joins the ranks of Ghost Soldiers, Unbroken, and The Boys of Pointe du Hoc.

In February 1945, as the U.S. victory in the Pacific drew nearer, the Japanese army grew desperate, and its soldiers guarding U.S. and Allied POWs more sadistic. Starved, shot and beaten, many of the 2,146 prisoners of the Los Baños prison...
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89
Beginning with a definition of who the people of The Philippines are, this fully illustrated history then tracks back to describe the prehistory of the country through to 1500 AD. The next two chapters chart the colonial experiences under Spain (1500–1896), then the first republic and the subsequent defeat by the United States (1860–1910). Following this are chapters on the Japanese occupation and the third republic (1910–1972). Next comes a description of the Marcos dictatorship and its consequences (1970–1986) and the book ends with a look at the fifth republic and the future of the... more

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90

Lalani of the Distant Sea

There are stories of extraordinary children who are chosen from birth to complete great quests and conquer evil villains.

This is no such story.

Sometimes, you are an ordinary child.

Sometimes, you have to choose yourself.

This is the story of Lalani Sarita, a twelve-year-old girl who lives on the island of Sanlagita in the shadow of a vengeful mountain. When she makes a fateful wish that endangers her already-vulnerable village, she sets out across the distant sea in search of life's good fortunes. Grown men have died making the same journey....
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92

Si Segunda, Noong Panahon ng mga Espanyol

Segunda doesn’t want to go to catechism classes. What she wants is to learn to read and count just like Felipe. Will Segunda get her wish?

Ayaw ni Segunda pumasok sa katekismo. Ang gusto niya’y matutong magbasa at magbilang tulad ni Felipe. Matutupad kaya ang nais ni Segunda?
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93
These collected essays depart from the usual narrative of the revolution as a progressive event leading to the establishment of a republic. They depict how separation from Mother Spain was imaginatively construed, what it meant for the church-center to be displaced by the nation-state, and the limits imposed by the failure of agriculture and the intervention of the United States. They also explore the intersection of revolutionary history, popular consciousness, and political events from the early decades of U.S. rule to the 1998 centennial celebration. How have contested readings of... more

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94

Pasyon and Revolution

Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

Pasyon and Revolution, unlike earlier Philippine historical writings that use largely the Filipino educated elite's categories of meaning, seeks to interpret Philippine popular movements in terms of perceptions of the masses themselves. Ileto submits to varied kinds of analyses standard documents as well as such previously ignored sources as folk songs, poems, and religious traditions, in order to articulate hidden or suppressed features of the thinking of the masses. Paramount among the conclusions of the book is that the pasyon, or native account of Christ's life, death and resurrection,... more

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95

America Is in the Heart

America is in the Heart is a semi-autobiographical novel from the celebrated author, Carlos Bulosan. Beginning with the young Carlos's difficult childhood in rural Philippines where he and his family face immense hardship, this gripping story follows the narrator's tumultuous journey in search of a better life in America. This is an eye-opening account of the injustices, abuse and discrimination faced by immigrants in post-WWII America. less

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96
"A wonderful graphic memoir, tinged with humor and tenderness. An intimate look at Philippine society and culture, but above all, a deeply endearing father-daughter love story." —Michel Rabagliati

When she learns of her beloved father's fatal car accident, Lorina Mapa flies to Manila to attend his funeral. Weaving the past with the present, Mapa entertains with stories about religion, pop culture, adolescence, and social class, including her experiences of the 1986 People Power Revolution which made headlines around the world. It is a love letter to her parents, family, friends,...
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97
These articles interrogate diverse issues in Philippine cultural history: the place of Nick Joaquin in the nation's historiography; the debate on the class position of Andres Bonifacio and the revolutionary outbreak of 1896; the state of regional literary studies and the case of Filipino crime fiction; and Philippine electoral politics as seen in the cracked mirror of Pascual Racuyal's career. The book ends with the author's reflections on the past four decades of Philippine cultural studies. less

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98

Sugar and Salt

An egg binds time in a place where lightning is a playmate of women and girls, but a gift of a mirror presages the destruction of what had been a haven for the female...

This modern fable is of such surprising juxtapositions, reflecting the seemingly trite but assuredly cruel twists of Philippine women's history.
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99
This is a richly textured portrait of the generation that created the self-consciousness of the Filipino nation. less

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100
On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in the Havana Harbor. Although there was no evidence that the Spanish were responsible, yellow newspapers such as William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal whipped Americans into frenzy by claiming that Spain's "secret infernal machine" had destroyed the battleship. Soon after, the blandly handsome and easily influenced President McKinley declared war, sending troops not only to Cuba but also to the Philippines, Spain's sprawling colony on the other side of the world.

As Evan Thomas reveals in his rip-roaring history of those times, the...
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