His father Benito, who died from aftereffects of the Bataan Death March and imprisonment in Capas, Tarlac during World War II, was elected to serve in the pre-war National Assembly.

Soliven spent his undergraduate years at the Ateneo de Manila University, where he received the OZANAM award for writing.

While working these odd jobs, Max won academic medals as a scholar at the Ateneo de Manila University.

[1] Guild 47 would be the first class to graduate from the Padre Faura campus, which reopened after World War II for the 1946–47 school year.

Max took some pre-law courses as his initial career preference was law, but he stuck to writing, obeying his father's deathbed wishes.

Whilst in college, Max joined The GUIDON, the school's official student publication, and served as its managing editor.

Before graduating in March 1951, Max joined the Sentinel, the weekly newspaper published by the Archdiocese of Manila as associate editor.

Taking his father's interest in military and his admiration for Foch, Max took ROTC for four years, twice as required and two by choice as he became a corps commander.

Max eventually received two scholarships: the Fulbright for travel expenses and the Smith-Mundt covering tuition, board and lodging, and some pocket money.

[1] Although Max did not have to work, he took a part-time job as a waiter in the school cafeteria, sending $100 each month to subsidize his brother Willie's studies in the Philippines.

In his spare time, Max would go to the UN headquarters when the United Nations was in session, especially when Philippine ambassador General Carlos Romulo was present.

Soliven began his career at 20 as associate editor of the Catholic newspaper The Sentinel, as police and political reporter for the Manila Chronicle at 25.

After returning to Manila, Max took a job in Procter and Gamble, which paid ₱500 a month, as a production manager for its factory in Velasquez, Tondo.

Max would start earlier in the day and work late at night if needed, as he kept his afternoons free to teach in the Ateneo.

He claimed this opportunity back in 1954 when he bumped into one of his high school colleagues in Ateneo de Manila University, Oscar Lopez.

He then got his break when Vergel Santos, one of the veteran news-writers of that time saw how Americanized he was and in turn, offered him to write an 11-part series on US economic and military assistance which was then featured on the front pages of the Chronicle in February 5–16, 1956.

Max then moved to the Manila Times, the nation's dominant paper, and made his claim as one of the best and brightest of the post-war generation in the 1960s to 1970s.

Because of his credentials back in his college years and because of his works in Chronicle, the people of Times were impressed by him, especially the publisher, Joaquin Roces.

He wrote an editorial published on April 26, 1961after the failure of the Bay of Pigs writing "How can it (the US) maintain its position of pre-eminence, how can it retain the trust of the Free World, when it shows it is capable of such calamitous bungling?".

In June of that year, the Times announced that Max, along with his wife, ventured to Cambridge, Massachusetts to join the Kissinger program, which was a month's long worth of seminars, field trips, and discussion amongst the small group of 15 made up of legislators from Europe and newsmen from Japan who went along with Soliven.

He would also become a columnist-on-air with the popular local radio station, DZFM alongside Melchie Aquino, who later be Philippine ambassador to West Germany.

Soliven traveled to many of the notable global hotspots during the 1960s, such as the Vietnam War and the 1968 Tet Offensive therein; and the Gestapu Coup in Indonesia in 1965, in which half a million people were massacred.

Soliven also earned an exclusive when he watched the detonation of the first atomic bomb in the People's Republic of China, where he also interviewed Premier Zhou Enlai on the matter.

His work for the Times would also take him to places like Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, and Japan.

In Soliven's television show entitled Impact, he guested one of the greatest enemy of the Marcos regime, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.

In his show, along with Lupita Concio, he was preparing for Aquino's arrival wherein they will talk about a top-secret military plan that would expose Marcos of his attempts to gain absolute power.

Among those imprisoned were Ninoy Aquino, Pepe Diokno, Chino Roces, Soc Rodrigo, Monching Mitra, Voltaire Garcia, and Jomari Velez.

Upon his release on December 3, 1972, the air of which from Fort Bonifacio up to Kennedy Street in the North Greenhills subdivision in which he resides was very different from what he expected.

Shortly after the assumption into office of Corazón Aquino, Soliven left the Inquirer to co-found the Philippine Star, where he remained until his death.

Soliven was posthumously awarded the Order of Lakandula (rank of Grand Officer) by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.