The Making of the Modern Philippines - by Philip Bowring (Paperback)

About the Book

"With a fractured geography and complex identity, the Philippines is an eclectic and unique mix of culture, environment, people and politics. Known mostly for natural disasters, migrant labour and dictatorial presidents, in this book Philip Bowring shows how it is much, much more. Deftly navigating the history of this populous island republic, "The Making of the Modern Philippines" traces its history to define and explain its position in the modern world. Looking past the headlines of volcanoes, earthquakes and violence, it asks why has the Filipino economy lagged behind its neighbours, explores the importance of its location in geopolitics, and investigates how its deep-rooted Catholicism clashes with the Islamic consciousness of the region in which it sits. Taking the history of the Philippines from its pre-colonial era, through its Spanish and American occupations and up to the modern day, it unravels the complex politics, culture, peoples and economy of this rich and unique nation. Engaging with challenges the Filipino people face today such as federalism, revolution, Mindanao, the diaspora, capitalism and relations with China, it rediscovers the struggles, culture and history of its past to understand the present"--

Book Synopsis

"Well-researched... a welcome guide." The Spectator
"Reliable and lucid." History Today

With a fractured geography and complex identity, The Philippines is an eclectic and unique mix of culture, environment, people and politics. Known mostly for natural disasters, migrant labour and dictatorial presidents, in this book Philip Bowing shows how it is much, much more. Deftly navigating the history of this populous island republic, The Making of the Modern Philippines traces its history to define and explain its position in the modern world. Looking past the headlines of volcanoes, earthquakes and violence, it asks why has the Filipino economy lagged behind its neighbours, explores the importance of its location in geopolitics, and investigates how its deep-rooted Catholicism clashes with the Islamic consciousness of the region in which it sits.

Taking the history of the Philippines from its pre-colonial era, through its Spanish and American occupations and up to the modern day, it unravels the complex politics, culture, peoples and economy of this rich and unique nation. Engaging with challenges the Filipino people face today such as federalism, revolution, Mindanao, the diaspora, capitalism and relations with China, it rediscovers the struggles, culture and history of its past to understand the present.

Review Quotes

"A serious, well-researched survey of the Philippines, noted its manifold weaknesses and set them against what has been achieved in neighbouring countries. His is a welcome guide for the general reader to a country whose excesses are often difficult to fathom." --Simon Scott Plummer, The Spectator

"Bowring's reliable and lucid new book draws on his experience as a journalist in the region." --Michael Dillon, History Today

"Provides insight into what Filipinos think about their country." --Alan Robles, South China Morning Post

"[Bowring] is the perfect chronicler of what Filipinos have done right and wrong ... It is a much-needed wake-up call from someone with no agenda." --Ruel S. De Vera, The Philippine Daily Inquirer

"The Philippines merits both more attention and more understanding and The Making of the Modern Philippines is both a good place to start and a useful crib-sheet for those who had been following along but whose memory needs brushing up." --Peter Gordon, Asian Review of Books

"A book that the world should be reading to better understand the political tidal waves [in the Philippines]." --John Berthelsen, Asia Sentinel

"In The Making of the Modern Philippines, Phillip Bowring is acutely aware of the many contradictions that define the Philippines. Only someone who has lived and loved the region - a genuine "Asia hand," as it were - can give us this fraught portrait of my country." --Patricio N. Abinales, Professor of Asian Studies, University of Hawaii-Manoa, USA

"Bowring's book on the Philippine narrative is a pot of history and current events, compressing the past and dissecting the present. It is the book Filipino youths, bombarded with revisionism, must read to understand the schizophrenic nature of their country's ghosts with the Spanish, the Americans, and the Japanese. They will be able to see the landscape of the Left and the Right, the Church and the Oligarchs that stirred politics into the everyday lives of the people that were once proud of leading the pack of Southeast Asian nations. Just by the woven accounts of the past thirty-five years since the fall of a dictatorship, Bowring was able to us what went so wrong and what is left of the hopes a country had stood for." --Criselda Yabes, Writer and Journalist, The Philippines

"This extraordinarily wide-ranging, yet accessible, account illuminates the intersections between the Philippines' Malayic roots and connections, its obdurate colonial inheritances, and its contemporary geopolitical predicaments. Bowring works concertedly through the country's complex, diverse past(s), painting a vivid picture of how today's Philippines came to be - and what it could become." --Liana Chua, Tunku Abdul Rahman Assistant Professor in Malay World Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

About the Author

Philip Bowring is a journalist based in Hong Kong and held the position of editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review between 1973 and 1992. He is the author of Empire of the Winds (Bloomsbury, 2018).