The Philippine Islands.

The Philippine archipelago, with its thousands of islands and many peoples, has long invited the descriptive labours of travellers, officials, and scholars. This volume belongs to that tradition of survey and record, aiming to set down the character of the islands for readers far from their shores.

What it's about

The book offers an account of the Philippines encompassing its geography, its inhabitants, and its history. Works bearing this title generally move across the physical setting of the archipelago, the customs and communities of its people, and the events that shaped the islands, gathering a broad portrait into a single volume.

Themes

Place, peoples, and history are its organising concerns, along with the encounter between the archipelago and the wider world that so often prompted such writing. It reflects an era's appetite for surveying and cataloguing distant lands.

Why it still matters

Older accounts of the Philippines preserve observations, and sometimes assumptions, that are themselves part of the historical record. For readers today they offer both information about the islands and insight into how they were once seen and described.

Who it's for

Readers interested in the history and geography of the Philippines and Southeast Asia, and anyone drawn to the descriptive literature of place.