A Nation Aborted

A Nation Aborted is about recovering a lost history and vision, an invitation to reread Rizal, rethink his project, and revision Philippine nationalism. It traces the trajectory of the Philippine nationalist movement from its inception in the late nineteenth century to its deformation and co-optation by U.S. imperialism in the early years of the twentieth century - through a genealogy of the rise and fall of the symbol of Rizal, the national hero. It reconstructs Rizal's vision of the nation, a moral vision that was appreciated by kindred spirits in the so-called Propaganda Movement as well as the Katipunan, and resonated deeply with the revolutionary spirit of 1896. This moral vision of the nation constitutes what is most crucial and cogent in Rizal's lifework in today's era of genocidal assertions of national sovereignty and predatory, corporate-driven globalization, a world increasingly deprived of compassion and justice and moving inexorably toward ecocide, resource depletion, and global warming.