Quezon City served as the Philippines’s capital for almost three decades (1948–1976), yet Filipinos today barely remember this historical fact. Was the city, therefore, a failure? This book answers this question by presenting an unconventional historical geography of twentieth-century Quezon City, one that focuses not on its grandiose architecture and master plan but on its boundaries, peripheries, and marginal areas. In so doing, it shows how the city functioned as a buffer zone mediating between city and countryside, and thus developed due to the urban–rural overlaps inherent in sociohistorical forces such as colonialism, revolution, agrarian unrest, decolonization, migration, and authoritarianism. Not quite Manila-centric, this book is twentieth-century Philippine history from an off-center point of view.
List of Figures
List of Maps
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION
The Contours of a Capital at the Margins

CHAPTER ONE
From Cattle Rustlers to Cabaret Dancers

CHAPTER TWO
Quezon’s City

CHAPTER THREE
Spectral Spaces beyond Balete Drive

CHAPTER FOUR
Jeprox Ambiguity

CHAPTER FIVE
The Submissive and Subversive Suburbs

CONCLUSION
Past, Imperfect, Tense

Notes
References
Index