A faithful reader asked my recommendations on some books about the Philippines. I’m not nearly as well-read as I would like to be.
What? Me read a book? LoL. Seriously, Laurence, a very good request but not one I’m ready to undertake at the moment. I can recommend:
Culture Shock is a classic that explains a lot of the ins and outs of how Filipnos thing and react to common Western “norms”
I can’t be responsible for all of these, but Amazon has an extensive collection, there’s likely one just for each of you there (Oh, by the way, Amazon does deliver to the Philippines).
Popularity: 2% [?]
Philly,
Let me recommend one for you:
“In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines” – Stanley Karnow
This book won the Pulitzer Prize. I believe it was made into a TV series, but I’ve never been able to track it down.
BTW, saw a movie on Foxtel last night – “The Great Raid” – about the rescue of American POWs in the Philippines during WW2. The Pinoy resistance fighters were given a prime role (unusual for Hollywood).
When you mentioned the Karnow book I slapped my forehead … I’ve know of it for yerars and never read it … must correct that deficiency.
Foxtel is one of the Fox Australia networks? We don’t get it on our cable here, more’s the pity. We do get ABC, and are very pleased they have been running the outstanding Ken Burns “War” series. I miss virtually nothing from US TV except the US PBS, which carries all the Ken Burns shows. For those not famliar with War, it’s on ABC 1800 Philippine time, Sunday evenings. They are about half way through the series now, so the coverage on Corregidor and Bataan are already gone but the liberation of the Philippines is still to come.
Most striking thing watching that series is the all-out effort that countries put into it. There is no way the US could ever mobilize and produce the way they did then .. we still cna find young men to die, but could you imagine a US president with the will to tell people to suck it up and perform as Roosevelt did, not to mention what the Australians wnr through, let alone other countries. Today the ‘war on terror” is something others do while the ‘real people’ watch TV and moan about their mortgage rates and complain that TSA officers are rude. Oh well, // soapbox mode off. be happy.
Philly,
After witnessing the flag waving Chinese nationalist students over here who were allegedly “protecting” the Olympic torch, I can safely say that there is at least one country I know of that wouldn’t have a problem mobilising it’s youth.