The University of Wisconsin Press

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Southeast Asian Studies

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Lives at the Margin Biography of Filipinos Obscure, Ordinary, and Heroic Edited by Alfred W. McCoy This book examines the lives of the men and women who emerged from the margins of Philippine society to mobilize a mass following. Instead of focusing on national heroes, this volume follows an unexplored path by studying the lives of Filipinos ordinary an obscure. Drawing on extensive field and archival research, this volume's authors treat the men and women who emerged from the margins of Philippine society to mobilize a mass following. Some may have been predators or opportunists. A few mixed cunning and violence with charisma and courage. But most acted as self-conscious agents of change who led their constituents in a struggle for social justice. Almost all failed, ending their careers marginalized, impoverished, or imprisoned. By looking at the Philippine past though the prism of their lives, we can glimpse worlds now obscured at the country’s margins Cebu’s underworld, Iloilo’s waterfront, Muslim Mindanao, the plantations of Negros, and the villages of Central Luzon. This innovative collection allows a fuller view of the processes of change and raises new questions about the character of the Philippine polity. The state’s capacity to compromise or marginalize the popular resistance revealed in these biographies indicates an extraordinary resilience, a supple power, and raises doubts about the dominant view of the Philippines as a “weak state.” Distributed for the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Center for Southeast Asian Studies Please send all inquiries about this book to the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, at seasia@intl-institute.wisc.edu Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)

March 2004 LC: 98-061608 DS 488 pp.   6 x 9 8 Photos, 1 illus. Cloth $49.95 s ISBN 978-1-881261-27-8 Paper $24.95 s ISBN 978-1-881261-26-1   Adobe Digital Edition (PDF) About our e-books Printing and cut/paste allowed, access on six different devices. ADD TO CART

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