Historiography finals essay (edited)the book Inventing a Hero: the Posthumous Re-Creation of Andres Bonifacio by Glenn Anthony May has been subject to a lot of criticisms and praises...this article aims to decipher May's book and his claims in the most professional way as an undergraduate student...
the book, even if it was subject to a lot of criticisms, tried to improve the craft of the Filipino historian in such that it tried to "fix" something, but then again we can never forget the damage that has been done... historians expect their work to be superseded again and again, which meant that this book really really tried to develop Philippine history...in this book, Glenn May criticized the works of Manuel Artigas, Epifanio de los Santos, Artemio Ricarte, Teodoro Agoncillo, and Reynaldo Ileto...
in writing history, one must consider the authenticity of the sources...we can do this by doing a background check about the author and his credibility...we can also read the sources to know whether that the source is credible by itself...May questioned the credibility of the sources of information about Bonifacio because he claims that some historians misinterpreted and had a difficulty with the Filipino language...the strengths of his claim lies in the fact that he compared materials; however it is also a weak conclusion since it was only a comparison, and not an individual study...
we can never assume in history because history aims and needs to tell the truth because a historian can shape the future...we can avoid assuming by having enough sources and proofs in order to derive to our conclusions...May said that some authors on Bonifacio assumed several ideas because of the absence of proofs and sources...the strength of his argument is that these books really didn't have enough references and footnotes, but his argument was also weak in such that he himself committed the same fallacy by not doing an extensive research (e.g. he criticized Bonifacio's letters without even getting the real document and see for himself his criticism of "the fake" Bonifacio's handwriting)
we need to ask the help of auxillary disciplines in history...May criticized several Filipinos historians' interpretations of the Filipino language, but is is really the ignorance of the Filipino historians or is he just not credible enough? a certain UP scholar contested Glenn May's accusations of misinterpretation... who will we believe, a Filipino scholar or an American who tries to interpret the Filipino language as a secondary language?
Plutarch's theory is "the very character of great men changes history..." May tried to prove that Bonifacio was just a myth due to several reasons including strengthening nationalism, the feeling of a need for heroes, etc...
his claims may or may not be true...
right now, we can never really say if what he claims is right or wrong since Glenn May challenged dead people during the time the book was published...
(the photo was taken from http://www.bibingka.com/phg/books/bonifacio.htm)
