博客來This book is a wide-ranging yet tightly woven collection of essays that examines Philippine history through the lens of people, power, memory, and lineage. Moving fluidly between politics and genealogy, public events and private lives, the essays reveal how history is shaped not only by presidents, popes, and revolutions, but also by surnames, families, forgotten dates, and everyday decisions.
Drawing from elections, disasters, religious traditions, cultural festivals, and family histories, the book explores how authority is inherited, challenged, misunderstood, and remembered. It revisits well-known figures-Aguinaldo, Quezon, Mabini, the Marcoses, Pacquiao-alongside lesser-known actors whose stories illuminate broader national patterns. Essays on surnames, nicknames, DNA, and genealogy underscore how identity and power often run along bloodlines, while pieces on December 24 and 31, beauty pageants, gambling, and ordinary rituals demonstrate how small details carry historical weight.
At its core, this book argues that Philippine history is not a distant or abstract past but a living narrative embedded in families, institutions, traditions, and public memory. By interrogating myths, correcting inaccuracies, and connecting the personal to the political, the essays invite readers to see history not as a fixed account, but as an ongoing conversation-one where the past continues to explain the present.
