Imelda Marcos: The Rise & Fall of One of the World's Most Powerful Women - Hardcover

Pedrosa, Carmen Navarro

3.93

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9780297792079: Imelda Marcos: The Rise & Fall of One of the World's Most Powerful Women

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297792075 ISBN 13: 9780297792079

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; St. Martin's Press, 1987

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In 1966 Imelda Marcos was 'rich, young and beautiful, an Asian Jacqueline Kennedy'. Years later Benigno Aquino would call her 'another Evita Peron', referring to her ruthless ambition and seemingly insatiable desire for wealth and power. By 1986 she was in exile in Hawaii, having been driven from the country she and her husband had led for over twenty years. In this gripping biography Filipino journalist Carmen Navarro Pedrosa tells the full story of Imelda's life: her tragically poor childhood and her subsequent drive to succeed socially, financially and politically. A naive young woman from the provinces, Imelda attracted attention in 1953 as the winner of the Miss Manila beauty contest and caught the eye of a rising young congressman, Ferdinand Marcos. After a courtship of eleven days, they were married. Under Ferdinand's stern tutelage, Imelda would emerge as his most important political asset and, later, as one of the wealthiest, most powerful women in the world. Based on years of research and in-depth interviews with both friends and foes of the Marcoses, this portrait traces Imelda's life from her poverty-stricken origins to her present state of exile, providing insight not only into her character but also into the demise of the Marcos regime and the current turbulent political situation in the Philippines.

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From Publishers Weekly:

Halfway through this dated expose of "Meldy," husband "Ferdie" and Meldy's jet-set "gang," the reader is told that the first portion of the bookwritten by this Filipino journalist on information gathered from a servant in the First Lady's childhood household, from her music teacher and from a cousinwas published in the Philippines in 1970, and that although the Marcoses failed to "squelch" it then, the book was banned two years later. If Meldy's countrymen were titillated by revelations that, contrary to her aristocratic image, she belonged to the poor branch of her illustrious family, that this child of a second marriage lived with her mother and siblings above a garage while her father and his first set of children lived in the manse, today's readers will be boredas they also will be at the material about the Marcoses' opulent lifestyle, which is covered in the newer section of the book, taking us up to their fall, which isn't exactly news either. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to the Star.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Journalist Pedrosa calls Imelda Marcos the "great what-might-have-been of Philippine politics." The poverty and misery of Imelda's childhood drove her to invent an aristocratic background for herself and to live extravagantly and imperially instead of empathizing with the poverty and nationalism of the people. In Pedrosa's view, Imelda was more than a jet-setter; she was an equal partner with Ferdinand in the Marcos dictatorship. Pedrosa's perspective is founded in strong Philippine nationalism and resentment of American influence in the Philippines. Occasional lapses where Pedrosa assumes the reader knows about Philippine life and history mar an otherwise valuable book, as does the lack of bibliography. But the book does provide a Philippine viewpoint on a woman whose lifestyle has received considerable attention. For academic and larger public libraries. Mark K. Jones, Cincinnati
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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