Pasyon and Revolution

Winner of the Harry Benda Prize and the Masayoshi Ohira Book Prize 

On the strength of his first major work, the provocative Pasyon and Revolution, Ileto counts among the most influential of contemporary historians of Southeast Asia. His attempt to write history from below, an endeavor of appeal to historians and social scientists throughout the world, has offered an alternative to more conventional research that subscribes to post-Renaissance Western notions of "objective historiography and "historical progress." -- Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, 1999

A further interesting dimension of this literature on peasant social movements is the scope it provides for writing "history from below: in my view (and Anderson's). lleto's excellent examination of the Philippine peasantry's experience of Holy Week and the meaning of the pasyon gives us local perspectives and details on peasant protest. -- Victor T. King, in An Introduction to Southeast Asian Studies, 1996

Unquestionably the most profound and searching book on late nineteenth-century Philippine history. -- Benedict Anderson, in Discrepant Histories, 1995

REYNALDO C. ILETO is a Professor of Southeast Asia Studies at the National University of Singapore. A graduate of the Ateneo de Manila and Cornell University, he has also taught at the University of the Philippines and the Australian National University. His other major work, Filipinos and their Revolution: Event, Discourse, and Historiography, won the National Book Award in 1999.