These collected essays depart from the usual narrative of the revolution as a progressive event leading to the establishment of a republic. They depict how separation from "Mother Spain" was imaginatively construed, what it meant for the church-center to be displaced by the nation-state, and the limits imposed by the failure of agriculture and the intervention of the United States. They also explore the intersection of revolutionary history, popular consciousness, and political events from the early decades of U.S. rule to the 1998 centennial celebration. How have contested readings of revolutionary events and heros underpinned differing ways of defining and being "Filipino" and how have these been embraced and deployed by both the state and its critics?