Resumen de The Three Flags of Philippine Anti-Colonialism. A Review of Anderson, Benedict's Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination London and New York: Verso, 2005)

Koichi Hagimoto

• Benedict Anderson’s Under Three Flags provides a comprehensive study of world politics and cultural identities in relation to the birth of Philippine nationalism during the 19th century. Anderson focuses on three Philippine writers: Isabelo de los Reyes (1864-1938), a polemical journalist and folklorist; Mariano Ponce (1863-1918), a coordinating organizer of Philippine independent movement; and most importantly, José Rizal (1861-1896), one of the greatest novelists of Philippine literature. By examining the impact of avant-garde European literature and politics on Rizal and his contemporaries, Anderson attempts to recover the dynamic yet often overlooked relationship between the international anarchist movement of the nineteenth century (above all in Spain, France and Italy) and nascent Philippine nationalism. Anderson explains the purpose of the text as follows: “the book is an experiment in […] political astronomy. It attempts to map the gravitational force of anarchism between militant nationalisms on opposite sides of the planet.”