unforgettably entwined.
Description--from the flap copy:
Sitting in Darkness follows the paths of three people in the Philippines: an American soldier of fortune, a Filipino revolutionary leader, and an American historian who left the safety and limits of the library for the hazards of the jungle. What emerges is a narrative in which past and present are unforgettably entwined.
In March 1982, David Haward Bain hiked 110 miles through the mountainous, sparsely populated coast of Luzon. Led by pygmy guides, he and his five companions crossed peaks, forded rivers, and negotiated jungles to retrace a historic expedition made during a pivotal but now forgotten American war.
What spurred Bain to attempt this trek were the personal sagas of two men who were symbols of their country's aspirations, headline makers and the century's turn, who are now largely unknown: Frederick Funston, a midwestern soldier of fortune and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and Emilio Aguinaldo, the heart and soul of the Philippine insurrection against the United States.
In 1901, after two years of war had reduced both sides to a stalemate, Funston discovered the whereabouts of Aguinaldo's long
-sought stronghold and concocted a brilliant and audacious scheme to capture him. Landing on a hostile coast under cover of night, the raiding party marched through uncharted enemy territory. Their success ultimately forced the war to a halt. The Philippines became an American colony until their independence in 1946, and an awkward post-colonial relationship continues to this era of Ferdinand Marcos, martial law, and Benigno Aquino.
While in the Philippines, Bain spoke with moderate oppositionists, government supporters, and communist guerrillas; priests, social workers, political scientists, and historians; policemen and peasants. Their voices give considerable insight into the tinderbox of repression and revolution that smoulders in the Philippines today. An epilogue brings the history of Philippine-American relations up to date with a mediation on the assassination of Benigno Aquino and what it means for the future of Philippine and U.S. power in that part of the world.
Sitting in Darkness is more than a history, although it is that many times over. It is that rare book in which yesterday and today are brought into sharp and simultaneous focus. It is a vast and meticulously executed chronicle of two nations and their people inextricably linked by politics and power, history and blood.
Comments
"Sitting in Darkness took me to the Philippines on a voyage I never imagined. Bain not only writes of a terrible chapter in our shared history with beauty and clarity, but does something even more difficult. He makes us care about the country as it is today and understand the pain of its people." -- GLORIA EMERSON, winner of the National Book Award for Winners and Losers
"Sitting in Darkness is a wonderful story of adventure, ambition, and betrayal set in a corner of the American past that few Americans have looked into -- and I suspect that those who do so through David Bain's excellent book will find themselves as fascinated and impressed as I have been."
-- MICHAEL ARLEN, National Book Award winner for Passage to Ararat
"Opinions may differ on the honor of United States involvement in the Philippines, but David Haward Bain deserves unanimous praise for his brilliant portrait of one of our most colorful military heroes. In boozy belligerence and savage ingenuity, Frederick Funston surpasses that other great brigadier-general, Evelyn Waugh's Ben Ritchie-Hook."
-- EDMUND MORRIS, Pulitzer Prize winner for The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
"Convincing, moving, and exciting, too. It reads like an adventure story in the highest sense; it also has the currency of truth and built-in political significance, transcending history, touching on contemporary American-Philippine relations. It's an unusual, quirky, wonderful book."
-- TIM O'BRIEN, National Book Award winner for Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried
"Sitting in Darkness is not only a triumph of literary and moral force -- it is a splendid example of the writer's personal courage as well. Stepping outside this video-saturated culture, in which so many writers seem numbed to history or contemptuous of it, David Bain physically reentered history, confronting the treacherous Philippine coast of Luzon as his protagonist Frederick Funston confronted it nearly a century ago. Few writers have ever honored their subject so gallantly." -- RON POWERS, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, novelist, and CBS media critic
"I don't know of anything quite comparable to this mix of history past and present, politics and personal adventure. And it's all done with a remarkable courage and storytelling skill that Mark Twain, another passionate anti-imperialist, would surely have admired." -- JUSTIN KAPLAN, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner for Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain and the American Book Award for Walt Whitman: A Life
"Speaks truth to power." -- SEN. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, award citation, Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award (hon. men.), 1985
"I wish you the best of luck with Sitting in Darkness."-- CORAZON AQUINO, President of the Republic of the Philippines
"Meticulously researched...Mr. Bain is more than a solid historian; he is also a good writer...a great yarn, skillfully told." -- Steve Lohr, New York Times Book Review
"One of the year's ten most notable books...perhaps the sleeper of the year." -- Beaufort Cranford, Detroit News
"Unusual, lively, fast-moving." -- Library Journal
"If Sitting in Darkness gets the attention it deserves, Bain and Funston could make each other household names...A tale of great people, wonderfully told." -- Jonathan Kwitny, The Nation
"Enlightening." -- Houston Chronicle
"David Bain's skillful retracing of a key episode in the gruesome 1899-1902 Filipino revolt against U.S. rule is a successful combination of historical romance and contemporary adventure...by gracefully presenting nearly forgotten events so that they fall into a modern context, Bain has given Americans a much needed warning about our current activities in the Philippines." -- Fred Poole, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Fascinating, powerful...Though he never preaches, no irony, contemporary or historical, escapes him. By turns tragic, exciting, comic, the book is an evenhanded account that allows itself no easy or didactic conclusions." -- Robert Houston, St. Petersburg Times
"This is a wonderful book...Is it adventure? Travel? History? The answer is all these and more -- it should be one of the year's required nonfiction reads...contains some of the best travel writing since Rebecca West's classic Black Lamb, Grey Falcon." -- Jack Lessenberry, Detroit Sunday News
"Riveting." -- ALA Booklist
"A revealing and colorful human procession...David Haward Bain offers an informed, sensitive introduction to both the Philippines and its people." -- Richard Montague, Newsday
"Absorbing, well-researched...brings to life both the era and the two men...illuminates life under the present regime." -- Publishers Weekly
"Recommended." Gentleman's Quarterly
"A new experience in reading history...Bain's book is definitely, in this reviewer's opinion, the best written book on the Philippines." -- Teodoro A. Agoncillo, the dean of Filipino historians, in Manila Panorama (largest circulation Philippine magazine)
