Review: The Philippines: A Past Revisited


The Philippines: A Past Revisited
The Philippines: A Past Revisited by Renato Constantino

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Excerpt from Ch. 18:

"When there is an attempt to understand society not in terms of myths and theories but in terms of the concrete experiences and sufferings of the people, history acquires practical significance. For only if they are armed with a concrete understanding of Philippine reality can the Filipino people act correctly to change that reality. And this understanding can come about by a systematic and patriotic effort to synthesize the experience of the past in order to obtain a concrete vision of the future.
History, then, should serve the purpose of integrating seemingly isolated facts and events into a coherent historical process so that a view of the totality of social reality may be achieved. Only then can facts be really understood and not be merely known; only then can this understanding of facts become an understanding of society; only then can history be perceived as a unified process. Only then can history have a goal.
And when history has a goal, the past ceases to dominate the present and to hold back the future. Then history can be consciously made." (Constantino, 1975).

Probably the best history book I have ever read in my entire life.



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