A Past Recovered

No scholarly article in recent memory has caused as much controversy as Philippine academic circles as Glenn May's "A Part Revisited, A Past Distorted,"an extended critique of the "nationalist" school of Philippine historiography that appeared in the Diliman Review in 1983. That article serves as the starting point of this volume of essays by Professor May, one of the most respected historians of the Philippines in the United States. Relying on a wide range of primary sources, most of them archival, he takes issues with several articles of faith of the nationalists--among them, the notion that the Philippine-American War was a genuine popular struggle. He argues as well that a number of widely accepted ideas about the Philippine past--for example, the belief that the holders of elective office in the Philippine municipalities during the Spanish era were the actual holders of political power--are nothing more than myths. Furthermore, in his final essay, he takes some healthy swipes at the scholarly contribution of academics situated on both the right and left sides of the ideological spectrum.