Details

In 1947, colonial Iberian scholar Professor Charles R. Boxer acquired a late sixteenth-century manuscript written by an anonymous scribe who had compiled several eyewitness accounts of both Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to Asia and the Pacific. Through detailed descriptions and lavish illustrations, this manuscript depicted the customs, costumes, and ways of life of the various peoples of East and Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines. In the decades since the book came to light, an international constellation of scholars has expanded our understanding of this valuable document, which has given us the clearest depiction of the lives of newly colonized Filipinos and the politics of early modern Asia. As such, Boxer Codex is indispensable for understanding both Iberian and Asian encounters at a pivotal time in world history.

This second edition contains the complete color plates of the original manuscript, maps of the different expeditions, an extensive bibliography, and an updated introduction that situates the work in a global context and presents the intertwined stories of academician Charles Boxer and Philippine National Artist Carlos Quirino, whose friendship ignited global interest and passionate study of the codex. Coupled with a fresh English translation and a modernized Spanish transcription, Boxer Codex is not only a historic text with a singular iconography but also a work that can be enjoyed as a literary product of the Hispanic baroque period in the Philippines, Asia, and the Pacific.

REVIEWS

“El Códice Boxer configura un singular y animadísimo momento de la magnífica prosa y la intensa producción española o hispánica de ultramar. Por encima de los géneros del informe y la crónica, representa acaso uno de los mejores momentos de la vivacidad naturalista de una cultura expresiva abocada a la universalidad barroca. Se trata de una resolución entrañada ejemplarmente en una tradición, la del Arcipreste de Talavera, ahora deslumbrada ante los nuevos mundos y las posibilidades de una literatura ensayística de materia antropológica.”

—Pedro Aullón de Haro, Universidad de Alicante

“This book offers a rigorous bilingual edition of the Boxer Codex, an essential work for scholars. At the same time, it opens a great door for the average reader who is invited to enter into a fascinating compilation of stories and images of sixteenth-century East Asia and the Pacific that are full of enigmas, ethnological wealth, and delightful details.”

—Manel Ollé, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

“No other single documentary source gathers more information about so many indigenous groups of Southeast Asia and the North Pacific during the early days of the Spanish colonization than the Boxer Codex. This treasure of firsthand accounts of detailed and revealing daily life is finally put in perspective and introduced and annotated for twenty-first-century readers in its original Spanish along with an English translation. This edition is meant to last as a primary reference for contemporary scholars for many years to come.”

—Carlos Madrid, Director of Research, Micronesian Area Research Center

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Isaac Donoso holds a doctorate in Islamic studies and master’s degrees in humanities and Hispanic philology from the University of Alicante in Spain. He also obtained master’s degrees in Islamic studies from the University of the Philippines and in music from the University of LaRioja, Spain. In 2004 and 2008 he was awarded the research prize Ibn al-Abbar, the most important Spanishaward for Islamic studies. His published works include Islamic Far East: Ethnogenesis of Philippine Islam (2013), critical editions of José Rizal’s prose works (2012) and his seminal novels, Noli me tangere (2011) and El filibusterismo (2018). He also edited the volumes, More Islamic than We Admit (2018), More Hispanic than We Admit: Insights into Philippine Cultural History (2008), and Historia cultural de la lengua española en Filipinas: ayer y hoy (2012). He currently teaches at the University of Alicante.