America's Boy: A Century of United States Colonialism in the Philippines
by James Hamilton-Paterson
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"Except for the three-year Japanese occupation, Philippine policy largely followed the dictates of Washington; to this end, as this chronicle shows, the United States nurtured certain homegrown politicians. Of the many 'America's Boys' selected, none rivaled the high-profile glamour of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Though the couple usually did America's bidding, they could not survive the savage media blitz that accompanied their decline. Yet for all the coverage, the US press failed to show more understand the deeply complicated relationship between the Marcoses and ordinary Filipinos."--Jacket. "Hamilton-Paterson sets his narrative in the context of the wider Asian tragedies of the Marcos era: the vast cruelties of the war in Vietnam, the rise of the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia, and the transformation of every local issue into a drama of the Cold War. His intimate knowledge of the Philippines allows him to view events in the capital, Manila, from the apparently changeless, but in fact complex and shifting, reality of the remote provinces. His peasants and fishermen, brought to life movingly and unsentimentally, offer startling truths about the high cost of dictatorship and American strategic arrogance."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Author Information
33+ Works 2,104 Members
James Hamilton-Paterson is the author of Blackbird: A History of the Untouchable Spy Plane and Empires of the Clouds, the classic account of the golden age of British aviation. He won a Whitbread Prize for his novel Gerontius. He lives in Austria.
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1998
- People/Characters
- Jose Rizal; Manuel Quezon; Douglas MacArthur; Ramon Magsaysay; Ferdinand Marcos; Imelda Marcos (show all 10); Benigno Aquino Jr.; Corazon Aquino; Fidel Ramos; José Rizal
- Important places
- Manila, The Philippines; Malacanang Palace; Subic Bay Naval Base; Clark Air Base
- Important events
- World War II (1939 | 1945); Martial Law (1972 | 1981); Assassination of Ninoy Aquino (August 1983); Coup Plot (1985 | 1986); People Power uprising (February 1986)
- Dedication
- Mark Cousins and Parveen Adams
- First words
- As a nation the Philippines is not well understood in the West, suffering as it does from a confused image.
- Quotations
- When in 1957 President Magsaysay was killed in a plane crash with his reputation intact as 'the champion of the masses', Marcos would have known that with luck and pluck it was only a matter of time before he became the next ... (show all)'America's Boy'.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)All long ago; and, to Kansulay, so very far away.
- Publisher's editor
- Belton, Neil
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 53
- Popularity
- 571,453
- Rating
- (3.30)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
