The British Book Trade and Spanish American Independence: Education and Knowledge Transmission in Transcontinental Perspective (review)

This detailed and well-prepared study draws on a wealth of documentary evidence to trace the important role played by British publishers, notably Rudolph Ackermann, in the dissemination of knowledge in the emergent Spanish American republics. The author goes on to argue that 'the notions about science and nature conveyed by Ackermann's publications created and shaped the perceptions that Spanish Americans had of themselves' (p. 4).

Eugenia Roldán Vera's first chapter is an excellent introduction to the history of the book in the region. Printing in Spanish America predates that in the North by some hundred years, but the Spaniards censored publication in the colonies as closely as they did at home. On independence in the 1810s, 'printing and the circulation of books became much less regulated' and 'mass education and literacy became a major concern of all the governments' (p. 9). The first 'two to three decades' of independence witnessed a government-sponsored expansion of literacy and free circulation of texts (p. 43). 'Apart from religious and political catechisms, the Spanish Americans produced very few textbooks of their own. In the 1820s the dominating tendency was either to translate them or buy them abroad' (p. 37). Britain was the first power to recognize Spanish American independence, and was deeply involved in trade with the region.

It was in this context that Ackermann began to print 'catechisms' (i.e. 16mo subject primers of one to two hundred pages in question-and-answer form) in London in Spanish for export to Spanish America. Ackermann, born in Germany in 1764, came to London in the 1780s. As a publisher he is perhaps best remembered for 'coffee-table books' (p. 54) such as the Repository of Arts and fine colour-plate books in aquatint such as The Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Ackermann's involvement with Spanish America began in 1819, when he exported printing presses, stationery, and scientific instruments; he also traded in luxury commodities, debt bonds, mining, and colonization companies. He was active as a publisher in the region from 1823 to 1830, printing some eighty titles: magazines, a handful of books on political history, and about twenty of travels and literature (including translations of Walter Scott), but the largest group, and the focus of Roldán's study, are the twenty-six catecismos and fifteen other manuals on pre-contemporary history, language, agriculture, music, science, etc. Religion is poorly represented, as is the subject of Spanish America itself (p. 53).

Roldán describes how Ackermann developed relations with Spanish American rulers such as Rivadavia in Argentina, Bolívar in Colombia, and Del Valle in Guatemala; later his works were distributed in Argentina by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (later president of his country). She also gives an interesting account of the means by which his publications were advertised in the press (p. 128) and distributed. Ackermann took advantage of existing networks of agents, often British, who did not specialize in the book trade: some of his books were, for example, to be had in an ironmonger's shop (p. 123). They were not cheap. Some of the catechisms were bought in bulk for use in schools, and the practice of the monitorial system meant that a few copies could serve a large group (pp. 147, 176).

Most of Ackermann's catechisms were translations from the English, but the translators took pains to remove any religious or political bias (Roldán gives some revealing comparisons, pp. 85–87). Ackermann wrote of 'spreading in the new states of America notions of useful knowledge, good taste in letters and arts, and the purest principles of morality, without touching on any religious controversy nor criticizing any political party' (p. 128). Ackermann's success in Spanish America led to his failure: first French publishers and then Spanish American ones reprinted his catechisms, thus taking his trade.

Roldán...