Imelda, Steel Butterfly of the Philippines - Hardcover

Ellison, Katherine W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0070193355 ISBN 13: 9780070193352

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, 1988

Synopsis

Biography

About this title

About the Author:

Katherine Ellison won the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for her work on a series of articles about the Marcoses clandestine purchases of property in the United States.

From Publishers Weekly:

The former first lady of the Philippines has become an icon of popular ridicule since the 1986 People Power revolution brought an end to her "ridiculous dreamworld." That world is captured here in its empty glitter, but Ellison, bureau chief of Knight-Ridder newspapers in Mexico City, is primarily concerned with showing how the Steel Butterfly made comic opera out of a historic opportunity for greatness: "an act of selfishness far uglier than any shopping binge." Tracing her lonely, traumatic upbringing in Leyte, her fabled courtship by Ferdinand Marcos and her role in his rise to the presidency, the author describes how the first lady gradually traded in a fairytale dream of romance for a dream of power. When the dream became a reality, she used that power for self-glorification ("Look! Look how the people love me."). This well-researched biography sheds new light on the Manila-Washington connection, the career of Benigno Aquino and his self-effacing wife Corazon, and Ferdinand Marcos' "creative diplomacy," which apparently included using his wife as a sexual lure. Photos. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0070193355
• ISBN 13: 9780070193352
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290