Ambeth Ocampo

Rizal Without the Overcoat

History need not be confined to the written word. Compared to texts that are voices from a printed or handwritten page, artifacts are mute. Yet, they too have stories to tell, many stories that contribute to a sense of what it means to be Filipino.

History from Philippine Artifacts

Cabinet of Curiosities

Looking back

Looking Back

The Rizal Lectures

Meaning and History

death by garrote

Looking back 3

Hindsight is the lowest form of intelligence–except for historians. In this handy collection of Ambeth Ocampo’s “Looking Back” column pieces, the popular historian digs deep and looks back carefully at events, places and important people who make up the country’s history.

Independence X6 Looking Back 11

Ambeth Ocampo on the inspiration behind this collection of essays: “Chulalongkorn’s elephants are the bronze elephants the King of Siam gave to Singapore and Java as gifts during his travels in 1871. I met the Singapore elephant first as I traced Rizal’s footsteps and found a reference to it in his diary. It was upon meeting next the Jakarta elephant that prompted me to compile this collection of essays that begins and ends with an elephant. More reflective than usual and going beyond Rizal and my 19th-centuray comfort zone, these explorations still carry my trademark irreverent humor.”

Chulalongkorn's Elephants : The Philippines in Asian History

Looking Back 4

Makamisa

Looking Back: Prehistoric Philippines

The book includes engaging articles on how France influenced Philippine life.

Philippine-French Relations

60 Years and Bon Vivant!

Looking Back: Virgin of Balintawak

Guns of the Katipunan

Ambeth Ocampo always makes historical figures come alive, blemishes and all, and with his curious eye, make our heroes very human and not the mythic figures that we want to make of them. [He] makes history enjoyable reading while at the same time makes it anchor us to the past and therefore, and hopefully, prepares us for the future.” – F. Sionil Jose, National Artist for Literature

Dirty Dancing

Looking Back 2

The Bonifacio Lectures

Bones of Contention

Collection of articles on Philippines social aspects.

Aguinaldo's Breakfast & More Looking Back Essays

In these beguiling essays on what lies beyond the fringes of Philippine recorded history—whether pointing out the laughing carabao on the margins of a centuries-old map, or combing for shards of Ming porcelain on a coral beach—Ocampo reminds us that the endless gathering and joining and breaking apart of apparently 'useless' bits is, after all, what makes us what we are, and connects us with others in their own quest for identity.

Ambeth Ocampo

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