Glenn Anthony May

Glenn Anthony May (1945–November 10, 2020) was a professor of history at the University of Oregon, where he worked from 1983 to the 2010s. His area of study included Southeast Asian history (especially of the Philippines), foreign relations of the United States, and Chicano history.

Biography

May was born in Brooklyn in 1945. May studied at Yale University for his undergraduate degree. After graduating in 1966, he served in the Vietnam War. When his military service was complete, he returned to Yale where he received a PhD in history.[1] At some point he would also marry Helen Liu; the two would have three children together.

May's main research focus has been on the History of the Philippines. His works include:

  • Social Engineering in the Philippines: The Aims, Execution, and Impact of American Colonial Policy, 1900-1913 (Greenwood Press, 1980, ISBN 9780313209789)[2]
  • A Past Recovered: Essays on Philippine History and Historiography (New Day, 1987, ISBN 9789711002602)[3]
  • Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War (Yale University Press, 1991, ISBN 9780300048506)[4]
  • Inventing a Hero: The Posthumous Re-Creation of Andres Bonifacio (University of Wisconsin, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, 1996, ISBN 9789711009151)[5]
  • Sonny Montes and Mexican American Activism in Oregon (2010).

May's work has been influential. His 1980 book, based on his PhD work, was published at a time when US control of the Philippines was generally thought to have led to rather positive results, was much more skeptical of the benefits of American rule. May's 1996 work on the historiography of Andrés Bonifacio attracted controversy, Inventing a Hero: The Posthumous Re-Creation of Andres Bonifacio. In it, May argued that much of the commonly accepted knowledge of Bonifacio were based on unverifiable or forged documents, and was a myth disconnected from the real Bonifacio. As Bonifacio is a Philippine national icon, this attracted pushback from those who wished to defend the standard version of Bonifacio's story.[6][7] May also criticized the work of historian John Leddy Phelan on the Philippines under Spanish rule in 2004, in particular his claim that that the Spanish began a process of changing communally held property into private property. Rather, May said, old Spanish documents indicate that the disputes of the era involved disputes with existing landholders - while the Spanish did take land, it appears it was from pre-existing owners in the Filipino elite, not from a commons.[8]

May died on November 10, 2020.[6]

References
  1. "Glenn May". University of Oregon. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
  2. McCoy, Alfred W. (1983). "Social Engineering in the Philippines: The Aims, Execution, and Impact of American Colonial Policy 1900–1913. By Glenn Anthony May". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 14 (1): 201–204. doi:10.1017/S0022463400009218.
  3. Larkin, John A. (1990). "Philippines - A Past Recovered. By Glenn Anthony May". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 21 (1): 252–254. doi:10.1017/S0022463400002447.
  4. Healy, David (1991). "Battle for Batangas: A Philippine Province at War. By Glenn Anthony May". The Journal of Asian Studies. 50 (3): 744–746. doi:10.2307/2057643.
  5. Terami, M. (1998). "May, Glenn Anthony, Inventing a Hero: The Posthumous Re-Creation of Andres Bonifacio". Southeast Asia: History and Culture. 1998 (27): 136–140. doi:10.5512/sea.1998.136.
  6. Aguilar, Filomeno V., Jr. "Glenn Anthony May 1945–2020." Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, vol. 68 no. 3, 2020, p. 555-560. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/phs.2020.0042.
  7. Manila Studies Association; Philippine National Historical Society; National Commission on Culture and the Arts (Philippines). Committee on Historical Research (1997). Determining the truth: the story of Andres Bonifacio : being critiques of and commentaries on Inventing a hero, the posthumous re-creation of Andres Bonifacio. Manila Studies Association. ISBN 978-971-8851-04-3.
  8. May, Glenn Anthony. "The Making of a Myth: John Leddy Phelan and the 'Hispanization' of Land Tenure in the Philippines." Philippine Studies, vol. 52, no. 3, 2004, pp. 275–307. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42633709. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.
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