The Philippine Islands

Lala, Ramon ReyesProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
432K words
Chapters
44

Tags

English Originals Historical Geography Human GeographySocial ObservationIllustrated GuideTravel GuideExotic CultureFolk CustomsCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Philippine Islands by Ramon Reyes LalaAuthor: Lala, Ramon Reyes,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: May 17, 2013

Editor's review

This survey of the Philippines, published in the early twentieth century and written in English, covers the archipelago's geography, peoples, products, religion and colonial administration. It is a primary observational text for understanding Philippine society around the time of the American takeover. Its author, Ramón Reyes Lala, long moved in cross-cultural circles, and his account combines a local perspective with an outside eye; his descriptions of the Spanish colonial legacy, the role of the Chinese community and inter-island differences are notably concrete. As a public-domain e-book, its text can be freely searched and quoted, making it suitable basic material for area studies. Readers should note the marks of its era: many judgments carry the colonial discourse and evolutionary thinking of the time, and its depictions of indigenous peoples are not always fair, so it is best read against later scholarship. It is neither a modern travel guide nor an academic monograph, but rather a window onto the ways of knowing of an older age, suited to slow reading with a critical sense of historical sources.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and preface first to grasp the book's geographical and thematic organisation, then read selected chapters closely.
  2. Mark colonial-sounding passages as you go and compare them with modern Philippine historiography afterwards.
  3. Follow the islands and ports mentioned in the book on a map to build a sense of space.
  4. Use the e-book's search function to look up keywords such as peoples, Chinese and religion for thematic reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a historical source? It is an English-language regional survey of the Philippines, a work of history and geography rather than fiction. It records what the author saw and heard and the social observations current at the time, and can serve as supplementary source material for the study of the modern Philippines, though readers should note the prejudices of its period.
Can I read it if my English is not strong? The original is in English, in a written style of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, with some archaic vocabulary. Anyone with university-level English reading ability can work through it with a dictionary; if you only want the gist, start with the chapters on geography and products and leave the thematic discussions for later.
Are the book's views still reliable today? Basic facts such as geography, products and ethnic distribution have some reference value, but the book's judgments about race and levels of civilisation reflect the limits of colonial discourse. It is best treated as a specimen of the history of ideas rather than as conclusive knowledge, and cross-checked against modern scholarship.

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About the author

Lala, Ramon Reyes Author

Ramon Reyes Lala is an author about whom limited public information is available; only his name and one surviving work can be confirmed. He wrote The Philippine Islands, the sole title by him held in the library's collection. Because public records are scarce, his nationality, dates of birth and death, education, and professional career cannot be verified, and existing records offer no further clues about his writing life. Judging from its title and subject, the book is likely a geographical, historical, or cultural account of the Philippine Islands and belongs among the earlier English-language works introducing the archipelago. Books of this kind generally served to convey local customs, society, and natural conditions to readers abroad, and thus have some documentary value in the dissemination of regional knowledge. Readers consulting the work should compare it with other historical sources in order to understand its content and period context more fully.