Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, this pioneering volume reveals how the power of the country’s family-based oligarchy both derives from and contributes to a weak Philippine state. From provincial warlords to modern managers, prominent Filipino leaders have fused family, politics, and business to compromise public institutions and amass private wealth—a historic pattern that persists to the present day.    Edited by Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families explores the pervasive influence of the modern dynasties that have led the Philippines during the past century. Exemplified by the Osmeñas and Lopezes, elite Filipino families have formed a powerful oligarchy—controlling capital, dominating national politics, and often owning the media. Beyond Manila, strong men such as Ramon Durano, Ali Dimaporo, and Justiniano Montano have used “guns, goons, and gold” to accumulate wealth and power in far-flung islands and provinces. In a new preface for this revised edition, the editor shows how this pattern of oligarchic control has continued into the twenty-first century, despite dramatic socio-economic change that has supplanted the classic “three g’s” of Philippine politics with the contemporary “four c’s”—continuity, Chinese, criminality, and celebrity.

Discusses the politics and economics of the drug trade, and traces the role of the CIA in drug trafficking

Discusses the politics and economics of the drug trade, and traces the role of the CIA in drug trafficking

Describes the clash between Catholic missionaries and wealthy plantation owners in the Philippines, and explains how world opinion forced the government to drop its falsified murder charges against a group of priests and missionaries

Describes the CIA's use of psychological torture, from the Cold War to the post-September 11th era, detailing the use of isolation, extremes of temperature, the manipulation of time, and assessing the implications of such inhumane practices.

Product Description: Introduction and compilation of scholarly essays on five countries, which reassess the transformation thesis of the wartime period (the Japanese interregnum) previously elaborated upon by Harry J. Benda and others.