Name: In Our Image
ISBN: 9780394549750

Stanley Karnow

In a swiftly paced, brilliantly vivid narrative, Karnow focuses on the relationship that has existed between the two nations since the United States acquired the country from Spain in 1898, examing how we have sought to remake the Philippines 'in our image, ' an experiment marked from the outset by blundering, ignorance, and mutual misunderstanding.

America's Empire in the Philippines

In Our Image

Jeni Enjaian

I wasn't sure what to expect of this book when I started read since the only reason I added it to my amazon wishlist was because it's a Pulitzer prize winner. Also, I know very little about this part of American history.
After finishing, I realize once again just how easy it is to critique something that's good but just quite good enough. (That's an inadequate way of saying that. It's to contrast the difficulty in writing a review of a terrible book.)
In no particular order, here are my thoughts about the book:
First, the print in this edition is way too small. That made it very difficult to read. Second, Karnow's chronology is a bit looser than I would prefer. He sometimes dashes forward to a conclusion about a particular subject before reverting to the narrative several decades back. I'm not a fan. Third, the narrative his fairly smooth an readable (aside from the previous two points). Fourth, the connection between the title and the subject seems to be missing most of the time. Karnow appears to have difficulty deciding whether this is a book about Filipino history or American history in the area at that particular time. Fifth, Karnow exhibits a huge amount of bias when it comes to the last section devoted to Marcos' downfall. The book is disproportionately weighted to tell the story of those events.
Overall, I learned a lot but the book could have been better. (It seems weird to say that about a Pulitzer prize winning book but still...)

In Our Image America's Empire in the Philippines

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