Damasco (The Route to Damascus, 1918), and Solo entre las sombras (Alone among the Shadows, 1917), lauded not only in the Philippines, but also in Spain and Latin America. Both were produced and staged in Manila to critical acclaim in the mid-1950s. In 1929, his article Monroismo asiático (Asiatic Monroism) validated his repute as a political satirist. In what was claimed as a commendable study in polemics, he proffered his arguments and defenses in a debate with Dean Máximo Kálaw of the University of the Philippines where Kálaw championed a version of the Monroe Doctrine with its application to the Asian continent, while Recto took the opposing side. The original Monroe doctrine (1823) was U.S. President James Monroe's foreign policy of keeping the Americas off-limits to the influence of the Old World, and states that the United States, Mexico, and countries in South and Central America were no longer open to European colonization. Recto was passionately against its implementation in Asia, wary of Japan's preeminence and its aggressive stance towards its neighbors. In his deliberation, he wrote about foreseeing the danger Japan posed to the Philippines and other Asian countries. His words proved prophetic when Japan invaded and colonized the region, including the Philippines from 1942 to 1945. His eloquence and facility with the Spanish language were recognized throughout the Hispanic world. The Enciclopedia Universal says of him: "Recto, more than a politician and lawyer, is a Spanish writer, and that among those of his race" (although he had Irish and Spanish ancestors), "there is not and there has been no one who has surpassed him in the mastery of the language of his country's former sovereign." The "finest mind of his generation" Recto was referred to by some as the "finest mind of his generation". Through his speeches and writings, he was able to mold the mind of his Filipino contemporaries and succeeding generations, a skill "only excelled by (Jose) Rizal's". Teodoro M. Locsín of Philippines Free Press, defined Recto's genius: Recto is not a good speaker, no. He will arouse no mob. But heaven help the one whose pretensions he chooses to demolish. His sentences march like ordered battalions against the inmost citadel of the man's arguments, and reduce them to rubble; meanwhile his reservations stand like armed sentries against the most silent approach and every attempt at encirclement by the adversary. The reduction to absurdity of Nacionalista