Podcast with Lio Mangubat, author of “Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, 1565–1946”

Detail of cover of sheet music (via John Hopkins)

Baseball’s introduction to the Philippines. The slot machine trade between Manila and Shanghai. A musical based extremely loosely on the life of the sultan of Sulu.

 

 

Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, Lio Mangubat (Faction Press, May 2024)
Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, Lio Mangubat (Faction Press, May 2024)

These are just a few of the historical topics from Lio Mangubat’s Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, a collection of 13 essays on stories from Filipino history as a Spanish and then American colony. All the stories come from Lio’s podcast, The Colonial Department, which features long-lost stories from the country’s past under Spanish, British, American, and Japanese rule.

In this interview, Lio and I talk about what inspired his essay collection, his conversation with Albert Samaha (an earlier podcast guest!) and what’s missing in how we talk about the Philippines.

Lio is also the editor in chief of publishing house Summit Books, and is based in Manila. Find him on Instagram at @liomangubat and @thecolonialdept.


Nicholas Gordon has an MPhil from Oxford in International Relations and a BA from Harvard. He is a writer, editor and occasional radio host based in Hong Kong.