Bøger af Ken Fuller

Founded in 1930, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (now called the PKP-1930 to distinguish it from the Communist Party of the Philippines formed in 1969) was soon declared illegal by the US colonial authorities. Regaining its legality later in the decade, by 1942 it was at the helm of the Hukbalahap, the most effective guerrilla organization during the Japanese occupation. With the reconquest of the Philippines by the returning American forces, the PKP and the Huks found themselves under attack by their presumed wartime allies. As Congressmen elected as part of the postwar Democratic Alliance were prevented from taking their seats by President Roxas and Huk areas were bombarded by government forces, the PKP returned to guerrilla warfare. While at first adopting a defensive posture, in 1950 the party adopted a strategy for the seizure of power. By the mid-1950s, however, the "Huk Rebellion" had been defeated by the Philippine government, guided and assisted by the USA.Forcing the Pace analyzes the factors responsible for the PKP's many teething problems and the defeat of the Huk Rebellion. taking issue with some previous accounts. Detailed consideration is given to PKP documents, many of which have not previously appeared in the literature on this subject.

There's a lot happening in the Philippine province of San Andres. English property developer Adrian Morton is promoting US retail giant SaverBarn, and US Navy veteran Sandy Booth also seems to have had a past relationship with the company, raising suspicions with Frank Corrigan, an Irish socialist sympathetic to the cause of Filipino nationalism. Drew Gorman, a tightfisted farmer from Ohio, is being blackmailed over an illicit liason. Australian lone yachtsman Pete O'Rourke has acquired a supply of explosives and a large amount of US currency. Philippine military intelligence officer Capt. Efren Miraflores is assigned to track down the explosives.Self-published poet Norman Bayliss has a persecution complex, while his friend Clive Baker, perhaps the most unpopular foreigner since the Japanese occupation, has persuaded Billy Lee, the mayor of San Andres City, that he's qualified to school the city's ill-discipline tricycle drivers in road traffic law. The mayor, however, is anxious to prevent the arrival of SaverBarn, and sees a use for Baker, while his mayoral predecessor Aristotle Yu, now lawyer for the litigious Bayliss, is leading a joint-venture project.And then, of course, there's former Hell's Angel Preacher McCandless, who now spends his time trying to win the masses to the Wrath of God church.The major strands come together as the largely dysfunctional expats stumble to the finale in the Plaza Bonifacio, where Mayor Lee's SaverBarn "consultation meeting" coincides with a tricycle drivers' strike and demonstration demanding Baker's removal, the attempted contract killing of Drew Gorman arranged by his live-in lover, and the final appearance of O'Rourke's explosives.

There were three conflicts in the mind of Raymond Chandler. These concerned his desire to become a "literary" writer as opposed to the need, once writing became his sole source of income, to continue turning out pulp stories and Philip Marlowe thrillers; his conflicted sexuality, a legacy of his childhood and education at an English public school; and his reluctance to support a thoroughgoing overhaul of the materialistic society he criticized in his novels. Raymond Chandler: The Man behind the Mask breaks new ground in taking a fresh look at a writer whose biographers have often overlooked or willfully ignored his sexuality and political thought.Ken Fuller is a former labor union official from London. He is the author of several books, including Hardboiled Activist: The Work and Politics of Dashiell Hammett.

The Long Crisis deals with the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001-2010). The author argues, however, that while the various crises were hitting the headlines there were two "elephants in the room"-the Philippines' relationship with the USA and the country's dysfunctional economy-that merited far more attention than they received. Therefore, while the book necessarily deals with the well-known scandals, these are considered to be mere symptoms of the "real long crisis" that has afflicted the Philippines for decades. Thus, discussion of the headline events is followed by separate chapters on the USA's role and the economy (the latter being the longest chapter in the book). A final chapter considers how a broad nationalist movement might begin to rectify the various ills by giving the country a national vision and sense of purpose. First published as an e-book in 2013, the fundamental problems The Long Crisis identifies have still to be tackled in a determined and consistent fashion, and thus this 2019 paperback retains the original text.Ken Fuller is a former labor union official from London. He is the author of a three-volume history of the Philippine left, a labor history of London busworkers, a study of the politics of US detective writer Dashiell Hammett, and a comic novel set in the Philippines.