Abstract
This paper examines the themes developed by the colonial bureaucrat-scholar Joseph Ralston Hayden in his book The Philippines: A Study in National Development (1942), the first comprehensive academic study of Philippine political development under American rule. It argues that the book is suggestive of how American officials tried to extricate themselves out of the dilemma of conceiving of a colonial state modelled after the United States but finding themselves confronted by a mutated version dominated by Filipino leaders. In seeking an academic explanation out of this problem, Hayden’s book also gives readers an insight into why the United States remains extremely popular during the late colonial and throughout most of the post-colonial periods.
