This book addresses how gold miners in Northwestern Luzon related to a larger South China Sea, West Philippine Sea, and Indian Ocean trading system from the tenth to the sixteenth century CE. Chapter 1 introduces the historical, archaeological, and ethnographic data employed to examine how the indigenous Igorot population of Luzon's Cordillera mined, consolidated, and stored gold in areas accessible to the coast where it could reach maritime traders. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the gold trade in Northwestern Luzon. Gold production in Northwestern Luzon dates to the early historical period (900 to 1599 CE) and this can be demonstrated archaeologically, historically, and orally. Chapter 3 provides background on the book's use of geographical information systems (GIS) and remote sensing methods.

In chapter 3, Canilao postulates how, if the markets used by the gold traders were temporary, they would be located on hill tops in view of the coast so that Chinese trading ships could be spotted. On the other hand, if the markets were of a more permanent nature, they would be located on a river facilitating the transportation of larger quantities of gold from the upland mines down to the coast. Over time, however, the upland miners began to lose control of the mining trade to coastal (as Canilao refers to them) ‘middlepersons’ whom they began to become indebted to. Chapter 4 reviews various theoretical models, such as World Systems Theory (WST), to understand the export of gold from Northwestern Luzon. Chapter 5 provides an analysis of the application of the research methods to the historical, archaeological, and ethnographic data of chapter 2. This data is subjected to GIS and remote sensing methods to determine the location of Northwestern Luzon's indigenous gold markets. Chapter 6 discusses the transition from temporary to permanent gold markets and how the Abra River became used for transporting gold from the Cordillera to permanent market locations on the coast. Chapter 7 presents the book's main conclusion that, as gold markets shifted from being temporary markets to more permanent markets, the indigenous miners of the Cordillera lost control of the gold trade and ended up indebted to middleperson traders.

In terms of the book's strengths, this reviewer appreciated its extensive discussion of pre-Hispanic mining in the Philippines. There is a paucity of literature about mining in the Philippines prior to the arrival of the Spanish and, in turn, the Americans. In Salvador Lopez's seminal book Isles of gold: A history of mining in the Philippines (1992), Lopez stated, ‘Metals, primarily gold, played an important role in creating conditions for social and economic change in the islands before the advent of the Spanish rule’ (p. 6). However, this book only mentions pre-Hispanic Filipino mining on 7 of its 468 pages. By providing a detailed discussion of pre-Hispanic mining dating back to 900 CE, Canilao fills this lacuna to some extent. Another strength of Canilao's book is its linkage of the local (mining in Northwestern Luzon) to the global (a larger Indian Ocean-wide trade network). Many people act as if globalisation is a new phenomenon. However, Canilao's book shows long-distance trade affected Northwestern Luzon as far back as the tenth century CE.

An interesting aspect of the book is its application, in chapter 4, of Wallerstein's WST to the historic gold trade in the South China Sea, West Philippine Sea, and the Indian Ocean. This is somewhat problematic because, as Canilao himself notes, a misuse of WST is its application ‘to worlds before the modern capitalist world system existed’. Perhaps an alternative theoretical paradigm Canilao could have used might have been the Canadian concept of the Staples thesis. Staples thesis is a theory asserting that the export of natural resources, or ‘staples’, from Canada throughout its history to more advanced economies has had a pervasive impact on the development of the Canadian economy (W.T. Easterbrook and M.H. Watkins, Approaches to Canadian economic history, 1967). The staples thesis argues that as different commodities (fur, fish, timber, grain, oil, and uranium) have been extracted from the Canadian economy, there have been differing rates of settlement, and in turn, economic development. In the case of Igorot mining in the Cordillera, Canilao could have used the staples thesis to explain the integration (or more importantly lack thereof) of the Cordillera into the Philippines as it became a Spanish colony in the late sixteenth century. Canilao points out that ‘indigenous Philippine communities contested and limited the nature of colonization in the archipelago’ (p. 105). To what extent was this attributed to a lack of integration of Igorot mining into the archipelago's economy during the Spanish colonial period?

Unfortunately, the book is also not without some problems. Early in the book, when many readers are still forming their initial opinion, it suffers from a jargonistic writing style. Consider this sentence, ‘It is the identification of either evanescent or permanent market situation that will ultimately provide a glimpse into the receding agentive position of the gold miners, receding resiliency’ (p. 1). The book also suffers from numerous missing references. In one paragraph, there were seven missing references!

In conclusion, Canilao's book provides a uniquely sourced supply of information about mining in the pre-Hispanic Philippines. As Canilao wrote, ‘The book is a unique contribution to the study of gold production in Southeast Asia because it intensively studies the connections between chains of producers and consumers that eventually reached out of the Philippine archipelago and fuelled, by the sixteenth century, a truly world system focused heavily on the global economy’ (p. 4).