In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines (ISBN 0394549759)

Highly Recommended:
A good friend of mine recommended this book to me. He said it would give me a better perspective on the history and culture of the Philippines and also the relationship it has with the United States. After reading this book, I have to agree with him. My wife is a Filipina and I think I understand where she's coming from in a deeper way now. A lot of this wasn't covered in the history classes growing up. I learned more about the political structure and history the Philippines has and how it was basically America's failed attempt at colonialism. I recommend this to anyone interested in history, especially if you have friends or family from the PI.

Detailed history, and very very well written:
I almost gave this 5 stars. All of the book is detailed, is accurate as far as I can tell, and is very well written. But it is sharter than it should be. It does a very good job summing up the period until the U.S. took over. But for the main part of the book, at times it covers the period well and then for other times it skims over it. Maybe the problem is that a lot happened over this period. But an author like Robert Caro would have taken the time to flesh out all of the periods. This is much like "A World Lit Only by Fire" or Citizen Soldiers - a trip through a period of time, diving down for depth here and there. But in this case, where the book is supposed to be a history of America's involvement in the Phillippines, it suffers from it's brevity. Good book but I wish there was more.

The US and the Phillipines:
This is an excellent account of the history of United States relations with the Phillipines. It is well written,well researched and facinating reading.

In Our Image:
For most people, the Philippines is an exotic land that was once our colony and cannot understand why they kicked us out of our bases there in the 1990s. The late Stanley Karnow provides us with a remarkably unbiased account of its history and truly educates us on these remarkable people.

Fast paced reading of history:
Gives a good overview to US-Philippines economic, social and political relations. Good detail yet easy to read due to a well developed writing style. The authors' many anecdotal observations were annotated, thereby helping to reveal potential biases, unlike many writings. Strongly recommended for any studies of Philippines 20th century history.