Word: archipelagos
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...tried to re-create itself in the malleable Philippines, an accidental unit of 7,000 islands with little in common save Roman Catholicism and an ambiguous urge to be free. It is also the story of how the U.S., though it succeeded in imbuing the archipelago with aspects of its likeness, failed at imparting its democratic spirit. In In Our Image, the sins of the creator are amply reflected in the faults of its creature...
...result of the American colonial experiment was trickle-down democracy. Concentrating on the practicalities of ruling the archipelago, U.S. viceroys allied themselves with the elite who held the rest of the country in feudal servitude. (Among the descendants of that elite: President Aquino.) The masses followed their masters who, intent on preserving their privileges, accommodated their American overlords. In turn, Filipinos integrated the Americans, turning them into ritual kin. Americans became big white brothers, inextricably bound to look after their little brown brethren...
Karnow traces these developments with authority and great insight, especially his spirited critique of America's dunderheaded rush into the archipelago at the turn of the century. Unfortunately, the scope of In Our Image has muted the drama of Marcos' inexorable downfall. Karnow provides fascinating new details about Ronald Reagan's reluctant abandonment of Marcos and his less than warm relationship with Corazon Aquino. But that story, the most familiar to contemporary readers, feels perfunctory and overly concise in the book. Set against the turmoil of the Philippine past, it is merely a loud echo of older patterns...
...prospect of a military invasion of the Republic of Maldives would seem to be almost as remote as the Indian Ocean archipelago itself. A collection of some 1,200 coral islands that together make up only 115 sq. mi. of land, the country lies several hundred miles southwest of India and Sri Lanka. Its 195,000 citizens, most of them Sunni Muslims, earn their living largely from fishing and tourism. Possession of guns is outlawed, except for the fewer than 2,000 lightly armed members of the National Security Service, and violence is virtually unknown. Yet last week the capital...
...city of Venice, built on an archipelago in a 212-sq.-mi. lagoon, has long been perched on the edge of disaster. The magnitude of the threat became clear on Nov. 4, 1966, when a storm on the Adriatic Sea inundated St. Mark's Square in nearly 4 ft. of water and pounded the facade of its revered basilica. But Venetians have come to accept periodic flooding -- acqua alta (high water), they call it -- as a way of life, while city officials and the Italian government have been slow to realize that Venice's artistic and architectural treasures...