This book emerges largely from the author's previous innovative work: Manila 1900–1941: Social Change in a Late Colonial Metropolis (New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asian Studies, 1984). After 40 years of meticulous research, consisting of work at various archives and libraries and interviews, Daniel F. Doeppers has attained enormous success in creating a new scholarship of historical geography in Southeast Asian Studies.
As the author claims, this book is “a first scholarly exploration of the critical analytical problem of provisioning Manila, the ‘megacity’ in Southeast Asia” (p. 4). This volume focuses on the food supply system in Manila from the late nineteenth century to the end of WWII. It is a history that traverses over a century's time of colonial experiences under three empires: Spain, the United States, and Japan. There might be several ways of explaining the distinctive features of the transformation of Manila as a big city during this period. The method adopted by the author is to trace the role of Manila in food provisioning, which gives us a unique perspective from which to understand the history of this period. We thus come to understand Manila as the “living entity of food provision network” within the city itself, as well as with neighboring and remote provinces, or even with other parts in Asia. Needless to say, the commercial network of commodities transformed in accordance with changes over the century analyzed.
The author sets up 11 chapters in four parts, and he uses a wealth of historical data, richly supported with narratives, to discuss the provision system of various commodities in Manila. Part I discusses rice trade in four chapters, important since rice was the staple food for most of the population of Manila. Part II discusses various traditional foods that were eaten with rice, like vegetables, fruit, fish, fowl, swine, beef, etc. Part III first describes [y1]water and milk as essential beverages [HS2]and then discusses new commodities like flour, coffee, or cocoa that were widely accepted during the American colonial period[HS3]. Part IV argues the wartime provisioning and mass starvation under the Japanese occupation and depicts how WWII brought devastating consequences for the Philippines.
To give a specific example of the connections between food supplies, trade, and colonial history, the book shows how the gradual change of food consumption[HS4] among the majority of Manilans from the 1920s under American influence occurred with the “remarkable rise of flour” (pp. 280–292). However, the American provisioning system totally collapsed with the Japanese invasion (1941–1945). While the Japanese occupation had the most destructive effect on the food supply system in Manila, the author suggests that other food crisis happened during the time of Philippine Revolution (1896–1898) and the subsequent Philippine–American war (1899–1902). On the food situation just after the above turbulent periods at the century's turn, Doeppers says: “In the immediately following years, rinderpest, drought, and the effects of conquest stalked the land. Many fields were left unplanted. But very large quantities of rice were now entering the port of Manila from Saigon” (p. 76). By comparing various periods of provision system, this book shows how the people of Manila developed and maintained the food supply by overcoming natural disasters (floods, droughts, and diseases), the siege of 1898, and price fluctuations.
From previous studies on the socio-economic history in the Philippines, we know the Philippines developed an export economy by the end of Spanish colonial period under British commercial influences[HS5] in the late nineteenth century. Anglo-Chinese networks functioned effectively in foreign trade until the end of WWI, and it was only after the 1920s that the United States showed a visible presence in its new colony. Feeding Manila reveals with much more detail the dynamics of this transformation of the Philippine colonial economy through the local phenomena of food system as its “micro cosmos.” Because the Philippines changed its colonial master from Spain to the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, most historical studies have divided the period into two colonial periods, namely, Spanish and American times. These usual trends and directions of historical researches have hampered our thinking on the continuity and discontinuity of the Philippine society from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. By traversing a hundred years of two colonial eras, Feeding Manila successfully fills the crucial gap of the previous researches and overcomes their deficiencies.
There are extensive endnotes and readers may access a comprehensive bibliography at the website of the University of Wisconsin, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, http://seasia.wisc.edu/home-page/about-cseas/faculty-staff/dan-doeppers/. There is no doubt that the fruit of this monumental work by Daniel F. Doeppers will last long in the studies of Philippine history and society, while keeping its stand as an important contribution for Southeast Asian studies.
