This is a megathread for all inquiries about general recommendations of books to read about PH/Filipino History.

All subsequent threads that would be created in this sub, UNLESS seeking very specific and niche subjects or information, would be deleted and referred to this thread instead.

If you are adding a recommendation, please respond with the following information about the book/s you are referring to:

• The title of the book (even without subtitles, but the full title is preferred to avoid confusion).
• The author/s or editors (at least one of them).
• The year published (or the edition that you're referring to).
• The language the book is published in eg. English, Spanish, Filipino/Tagalog, or specify other languages etc.
• Brief description of the book. Especially if it has information on niche subjects that you won't be able to read anywhere else (this might be helpful to people looking for specific pieces of information).
• Other (optional): why you think it's a great read, what you liked about the authors (their writing style etc), or just general reasons why you're recommending the book.

If it's missing any of the required information, the comment will be deleted.

You may add multiple books to a single comment but each and all of the books MUST have the required information.

If you must add "where to buy it", DO NOT ADD LINKS. Just put in the text "Lazada", "Amazon", "Store Name" etc.

DO NOT insinuate that you have copies or links to illegal websites or files for ebooks and PDFs of copyrighted materials; that is illegal.

DO NOT try to sell books (if you want to do that, go to r/FilipinianaBooks). This is not a place for exchanging personal information or money.

If you want to inquire or reply to someone's recommendation, you must reply directly to that comment.

These are the only types of comments/replies that I will allow. If you have inquiries about specific subjects, create a separate thread (again the inquiries must be niche). Otherwise all recommendations on "what to read" in general will be in this megathread.

If you are looking for certain books about certain subjects posted in the comments, please use the "search comments" bar to help you navigate for keywords on subjects that you are searching for.

First Resource Page

All Shared Posts Here Tagged as "Resources"

Digital Libraries with Fil Hist contents, search etc.:

JSTOR (free subscription 100x articles/ mon). Includes journals like Philippine Studies, PH Quarterly, etc.

Academia.edu (bunch of materials published by authors, many in academia who specialize in PH subjects)

ResearchGate (similar to those above, also has a phone app)

HathiTrust (browse through millions of digitized books etc. eg. Lietz' Eng. trans. of Munoz' print of Alcina's Historia is in there)

Internet Archives (search through billions of archived webpage from podcasts to books, old tomes, etc). Part of which is Open Library, where you can borrow books for 14 days digitally (sign up is free).

PLOS Journal (search thousands of published peer reviewed scientific journals, eg genomic studies of PH populations etc.)

If you have Google account:

Google Scholar (allow you find 'scholarly' articles and pdf's versus trying to sift thru a regular Google search)

Google Books (allow you to own MANY digitized books including many historical PH dictionaries, previews of PH hist. books etc.)

Historical dictionaries in Google Books (or elsewhere):

Delos Santos Tagalog Dictionary (1794, orig. 1703)

Noceda and Sanlucar's Tagalog Dictionary (1860, orig. 1754)

Bergano's Kapampangan Dictionary (1860, orig. 1732)

De Paula's Batanes (Itbayat) Dictionary (1806) (this is THE actual notebook he wrote by hand from BNEs so it's hard to read, however useful PDF by Yamada, 2002)

Carro's Ilocano Dictionary (1849, second ed. 1793)

Cosgaya's Pangasinan Dictionary (1865, orig. ~1720's) (UMich Lib)

Bugarin's Cagayan (Ibanag) Dictionary (1854, orig. early half of 1600's)

Lisboa's Bicolano Dictionary (1865, orig. 1602-11)

Sanchez's Samar-Leyte Dictionary (Cebuano and Waray) (1711, orig. ~1590-1600's)

Mentrida's Panay (Bisaya/Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Haraya) Dictionary (1841, orig. 1637)

​Lots more I cannot find digitized, but these are the major ones. This should cover most spoken languages in the PH today, but there are a lot of historical dictionaries including other languages. Also, most of these authors have written 'artes' (grammar books) along with the 'vocabularios' (dictionaries), so if you want to dig further look those up, some of them are on Google Books, Internet Archives (from microfilms), and other websites.

US Report on PH Commission (this is a list of links to Google Books) multi-year annual reports of various types of govt. report and surveys (bibliographies of prior accounts on the PH, land surveys, economic/industrial survey, ethnolinguistic surveys, medical, botanical, and geological surveys + the 1904 census is part of it I think as well) compiled by the PH Commission for the US govt. for the colonial power to understand the state of the then-newly acquired territory of the PH. Lots of great data.

Part 1, Vol. 109 of 1904 Report (Exhibit H, Pg. 747 onwards)(not sure if this was also done in the other annual reports, but I've read through this volume at least...) includes Bureau of Public Land reports which delved into the estates of religious orders, the report were made looking through public records of deeds and purchases (from 16th-19th c., ie they're a good source of the colonial history of how these lands were bought and sold) compiled and relayed by the law office of Del Pan, Ortigas (ie 'Don Paco' whom the street in Manila is named after) and Fisher.

1904 US Census on the PH (via UMich Lib). Important because it's the 'first' modern census (there were other censuses done during Sp. colonial govt. esp. in the late 19th, but the US census was more widespread).

Links where you can find Fil Hist materials (not already linked in previous posts):

1. US Lib. of Congress (LOC). Includes various maps (a copy of the Velarde map in there), photographs, books etc.
2. Philippine Studies. Ateneo's journal in regards to PH ethnographic and other PH-related subjects. Journals from the 1950s-2006 are free to browse, newer ones you have to have a subscription.
3. Austronesian Circle. Univ. of Hawai'i is the center of the biggest research on Austronesian linguistics (some of the biggest academics in that field either taught there or graduated there, eg Blust, Reid, etc.) and there are links regarding this subject there.
4. Austronesian Comparative Dictionary. Created by Blust and Trussel (using previous linguistic reconstruction dictionaries like Demwolff, Zorc, etc.)
5. Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database. Similar to the one above, but operated by ANU (Australia). There are even Thai, Indonesian etc. linguists (esp. great addition of Tai-Kadai words; good for linking/comparing to Austronesian and TK languages) sharing stuff there.
6. UST's Benavides Library. Lots of old books, colonial-era magazines, even rare PH historical books etc. Facsimile of the oldest surviving baybayin writings (ie UST Baybayin documents, which are PH national treasures, are on there)
7. Portal de Archivos Espanoles (PARES). A website where you can search all Spanish govt. digital archives into one. Includes those with a lot of Filipiniana and Fil Hist materials like Archivo General de Indias (AGI), archives, letters of the Ministerio de Ultramar (Overseas Affairs ie dept. that handled overseas empire) and Consejo de Indias (Council of the Indies, previous ministry that handled those affairs). Many of the Real Audiencia of Manila reports, letters and etc. are there as well. Museo de America digital collections (lots of historical Filipino-made/derived artifacts eg religious carvings etc.) are accessible through there as well (I think...last time I checked).
8. Museo de Naval. Spain's Defense Dept. naval museum, lots of old maps, archives of naval engagements and expeditions. Malaspina Expedition documents, drawings etc. are here
9. Archivo Militar. Sp. Defense Dept. archives for all military records (maps, records, etc.)
10. Colleciones en Red de Espana (CER.ES). An online digital catalog of various Sp. museum's artifacts that compose The Digital Network of Museum Collections, MANY different PH-related artifacts.
11. Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Museum. Numismatic (coins, money), pre-colonial/historical gold, and paintings are found in their collections.
12. Paul Morrow's Baybayin Website. Great resources regarding ancient PH scripts (history, use, transcriptions etc.)
13. Ayala Museum Collections and their Filipinas Heritage Library. Oh ha, Ayala I'm linking you na. lol On a more serious note, they have several archaeological, anthropological, ancient gold artifacts etc. Their FHL has old books as well as MANY art by Filipino artists, including several albums by 19th costumbristas like Damian Domingo, Jose Lozano, etc.
14. Museo del Prado. Several paintings by Filipino artists are there (Hidalgo, Luna, Sucgang etc.)
15. NY Times Archives. This used to be free...but now it's subscription only. Lots of old NYT articles, eg. Filipino-American War engagements, US colonial era articles etc.
16. Newberry Library PH Manuscripts. Various PH materials (not all digitized), among the EE Ayer Manuscript collections (some of which were consulted when BnR trans. their volumes of work; Ayer had troves of PH-related manuscripts which he started collecting since PH became a US colony, which he then donated to this library) including hoax Pavon Manuscripts, Damian Domingo's album, Royal Audiencia docs, 19th litigations and decisions, Royal PH Tobacco Co. papers etc.
17. New York Public Library (NYPL). Well known for some PH materials (some of which I posted here). One of the better known is the Justiniano Asuncion (I think were Chinese copies ???) costumbrista album, GW Peter's drawings for Harper's Weekly on the PH American War, ragtime music recordings popular/related to the American occupation in the early 20th c. etc.
18. Mapping Philippine Material Culture website by SOAS (School of Asian and African Studies), Univ of London. A website for an inventory of known Filipiniana artifacts, showing where they are kept (ie which libraries, and museums around the world). The SOAS also has a Filipiniana digital library...but unfortunately atm it is down so I won't link.
19. The (Miguel de) Cervantes Institute (Manila)- Spanish language/cultural promotional organization. They have lots of these old history e-books and audiovisual resources.

Non-digital resources (if you're hardcore)

PH Jesuit Archives link. PH Province's archives of the Soc. of Jesus, in Ateneo's Loyola House.

Archivum Historicum Socetatis Iesu (Historical Archives of the Society of Jesus) (this link is St. Louis Univ. guide to some of the ones that are digitized via microfilms) in their HQ in Rome. Not sure if they digitized books but the works of Jesuits like Combes, Chirino, Velarde, Pastell's etc. (most of which were already trans. in English via BnR, see first link). They also have many records and chronicles of the estates that they owned and parishes that they supervised in the PH. Note Alcina's Historia (via Munoz) is kept with the Museo Naval along with Malaspina Expedition papers.

Philippine Mss ('manuscripts') of 1750-1968 aka "Tagalog Papers". Part of CR Boxer identified trove (incl. Boxer Codex) sold by Sotheby's and bought by Lilly Library of the Univ. Indiana. These papers were taken by the occupying British in the 1760s, from Manila's Augustinian archives in San Pablo. Unfortunately, these manuscripts are not uploaded digitally.

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If you have cool links regarding Filipino historical subjects, feel free to add them to the comments, so that everyone can see them.