In these beguiling essays on what lies beyond the fringes of Philippine recorded history—whether pointing out the laughing carabao on the margins of a centuries-old map, or combing for shards of Ming porcelain on a coral beach—Ocampo reminds us that the endless gathering and joining and breaking apart of apparently 'useless' bits is, after all, what makes us what we are, and connects us with others in their own quest for identity.
Hindsight is the lowest form of intelligence–except for historians. In this handy collection of Ambeth Ocampo’s “Looking Back” column pieces, the popular historian digs deep and looks back carefully at events, places and important people who make up the country’s history.
This book consists of six sections: first, feature stories about various local area people and places; second, news stories; third, sports stories; fourth, a history of Oconee County government; fifth, stories by Ashton Hester about his experiences with the US Army during the Vietnam War; and sixth, week-to-week highlights from issues of the Keowee Courier from the years 19731980. It is the authors hope that these stories will bring back some nostalgic memories for longtime residents and provide some historical insight for younger people and newcomers to the area. The Keowee Courier, founded in 1849, is upstate South Carolinas second oldest newspapersecond only to the Abbeville Press and Banner/Abbeville Medium, which was founded in 1844.
Ambeth Ocampo always makes historical figures come alive, blemishes and all, and with his curious eye, make our heroes very human and not the mythic figures that we want to make of them. [He] makes history enjoyable reading while at the same time makes it anchor us to the past and therefore, and hopefully, prepares us for the future.” – F. Sionil Jose, National Artist for Literature
In this book, besides offering the usual juicy titbits, he looks back not just at our history but also on his life as an historian, this book being written for his 50th birthday. His introduction alone is already worth the price of admission.
Ambeth Ocampo on the inspiration behind this collection of essays: “Chulalongkorn’s elephants are the bronze elephants the King of Siam gave to Singapore and Java as gifts during his travels in 1871. I met the Singapore elephant first as I traced Rizal’s footsteps and found a reference to it in his diary. It was upon meeting next the Jakarta elephant that prompted me to compile this collection of essays that begins and ends with an elephant. More reflective than usual and going beyond Rizal and my 19th-centuray comfort zone, these explorations still carry my trademark irreverent humor.”
Looking Back on the End of the World raises provocative questions about the possibilities of critical knowledge in social systems that seem to have surpassed history. First published in 1989, Looking Back on the End of the World raises provocative questions about the possibilities of critical knowledge in social systems that seem to have surpassed history. Unlike recent works that make history end with the consumer, or project the conflict between the capitalist and the oppressed into the future, the writers in these essays perform a much more basic task: they argue that we can now think through the end of the world. The idea of a unified world, they claim, has given way to new sensibilities about history. The essays evaluate current negative obsessions such as apocalypse and the elimination of difference, and offer positive approaches to the gamble of thinking required in a society without traditional subjects and institutions. Capitalism, the book argues, has changed all the rules of the game, and any nostalgia for starting from the familiar in terms of intellectual critique is doomed. Collectively, the authors sketch the unfamiliarity of the new, those moments when our categories dissolve in the face of connections and relations that announce all sorts of ends. And other things besides. Contributors: Jean Baudrillard, Gunter Gebauer, Dieter Lenzen, Edgar Morin, Gerburg Treusch-Dieter, Paul Virilio
The cause of history writing owes Ambeth Ocampo a great deal. By his extraordinary use of a relatively new genre, he has rescued history from the cold, forbidding halls of academe. He has made of history something amusing, entertaining . . . as immediate as a newspaper headline, as relevant as a rapper’s song.”– Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil
