₱435
By Luis Camara Dery
Published by New Day Publishers, ©1991.
Studies on Kabikolan must necessarily depend on painstaking research of archival materials in Philippine repositories, and ideally, also in archives and libraries abroad. Luis Dery’s book used extensively such archival materials on Sorsogon in the National Archives as well as in the archives of the Manila Archbishopric and the parish records of Sorsogon. It is probably the first comprehensive history of the province of Sorsogon from prehistoric times to the turn of the century using primary sources, as the extensive bibliography attests. The book explains the interplay of geography, Spanish colonial administration and the devastating Moro raids on the people of Sorsogon. The interactions of these elements, Dery maintains, had, through the centuries, transformed a once brave and sturdy people to a passive group unable to offer spirited resistance to outsiders come to dominate them, be they Americans or non-Sorsoganons.
This is a significant socioeconomic history of the people of Sorsogon based on hitherto unexamined documentation and certainly an important contribution to the already existing body of historical literature on local or provincial history in the Philippines. As extensive as Dery’s study has been, his work has shown how much remains to be done in Kabkolan and other regions of the Philippines using archival sources found in the Philippines. Obviously, there are still undiscovered gaps in the study of the Philippine society and culture, and it is only after we have studied these component parts of the Philippine archipelago that we can move beyond individual local studies to interregional comparison or revised national analysis. As a major work on the province of Sorsogon, Dery’s book is a significant contribution to Philippine historiography.
– Bernardtita Reyes Churchill
University of the Philippines
Description: 328 pages ; 22 x 14.5 cm
Language: English
ISBN: 978-971-10-0423-2
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