In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines
Stanley Karnow
In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines is a 1989 book by American journalist Stanley Karnow, published by Random House. The book details the Philippine–American War (1899–1902) and the subsequent American occupation of the islands. Karnow described the book as "the story of America's only major colonial experience. How did we perform? What did we do there? What have we left there?" Karnow was a journalist in southeast Asia from 1959 to 1974. He made six trips to the Philippines for research while writing the book, and also drew heavily on archives. The book was awarded the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for History. Karnow worked concurrently on, and was the ‘chief correspondent’ and narrator for, a companion three-part PBS television documentary, The U.S. and the Philippines: In Our Image, which aired in 1989.
Award History
1 wins · 1 total
| Award | Year | Result | Category / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pulitzer Prize in HistoryMajor | 1990 | Winner | Secondary source |
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies
This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.
01 Central figures
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
02 Central places
None extracted with sufficient confidence.
These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.
- Philippines60%
03 Suggested argument
The book frames America’s Philippine–American War and subsequent occupation as its only major colonial experience and asks how America performed, what it did there, and what it left behind.
Model confidence 62%
04 Reading orientation
35 / 100 academicSerious trade
An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.
Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 75%.