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Imelda Marcos' rise from flats to Ferragamos is related with surprising sympathy. An arriviste in a city of snobbish aristocrats, Imelda struggled to fit in, fell into depression and then re-created herself, sometimes pathetically, in her brilliant husband's image. As for Marcos himself, Burton writes, "he was the kind of lawyer you would hire to get you off if you were really in trouble -- particularly if you were guilty." But, at the end, he is a Filipino Macbeth doomed to give way to the murdered Banquo's heiress. One worrisome anecdote Marcos must have heard at the time has the ostensibly neutral U.S. ambassador warning that if the President cheats "Cory" of victory, "we will put so much pressure on him that within 30 days he will disintegrate."
Currently TIME's Beijing bureau chief, Burton predicts no outcome for Corazon Aquino's unfinished revolution. While Karnow alludes to the failures of elite-led Philippine governments in the past, he too restrains himself from looking too far into the future. Both authors can only suggest that after so volatile a passage, Filipinos and their politics can be expected to produce even more fireworks. And that, for better or for worse, Americans will be right there with them.