Very high Quality book. The chapter entitled "The Country and Its People" is an excellent account and analyses of our Philippine history. Even better than what is taught in school here. You will be ready to appreciate my country during your visit. It contains many, many beautiful color pictures on high quality paper. I would read this book before I left & take the latest edition of the Lonely Planet Guide with me.

The Philippines tourism bureau should distribute free copies of this book, because it really does a good job of showing off the country in all its glory. I recently spent a lot of time looking at various travel books to research a trip to Palawan/El Nido, and this was the only book that I felt covered the topic adequately. Besides the great text, the book is packed with beautiful pictures!

I just finished reading the chapter entitled "The Country and Its People" in Traveler's Philippines Companion. I consider it to be one of the best, if not the very best, accounts and analyses of the history of a nation that I've ever read. My wife, who is Filipino, said it is easily superior in breadth and depth to what she learned in school. Impressively, it accomplishes this in a most succinct fashion. I never expected to find such a treasure in a travel book. I now feel much enlightened on the subject and therefore well primed to appreciate the country I'm about to visit.