In this landmark history of the making of the Philippines, National Artist Carlos Quirino recounts how the concept of the Philippines emerged as a vague grouping of islands in the early fourteenth century and evolved in fits and starts over half a millennium into its current iconography.

The Philippines as a geographical and ideological construct was shaped by a long lineage of cosmographers, cartographers, and artists spanning diverse cultures and times… From ancient Chinese scrolls, Japanese and Portuguese portolan maps, French scientific surveys, and British merchants' nautical charts, Quirino weaves a history of heroics and everyday drudgery, of personal and international rivalries, as well as of egregious mistakes and brilliant insights.