In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Hispanic American Historical Review 84.1 (2004) 184-186



[Access article in PDF]
The European Revolutions of 1848 and the Americas. Edited by Guy Thompson. Nineteenth-Century Latin America, no. 7. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 2002. Tables. viii, 240 pp. Paper.

To translate the influence of political ideas in different contexts is a dangerous endeavor that casts the credibility of the historian of ideas into permanent doubt. Some contend that political ideas are rooted in certain contexts, and when transferred to different environments they undergo alterations that make them difficult to recognize. This book on the European Revolutions of 1848 and their influence in the Americas tries to do something still more complex—not only to trace the influence of the ideas that inspired the near-simultaneous uprisings in Europe but also show how the events themselves were models for social unrest and revolution. Six case studies (Argentina, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, and the United States) deal with the content of social republicanism, its reading in these countries, and the relationship between political events in the New World and the "spring of the people" in Europe. The book also contains two general surveys of the European revolutions and their influence in America. A final article is devoted to the Chilean Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna and his impressions of the events in Europe during his trips between 1852 and 1853.

Most of the articles confirm Roger Magraw's observation that the participation of a "radical republican stratum of the bourgeoisie" was the driving ideological and organizational force behind popular protest in France, rather than the artisanal character of the urban labor force. This is also true in Latin America—where, as Clara Lida suggests, the French political and social ideas of romanticism, utopian and democratic socialism, and republicanism penetrated through the bourgeois so-called liberals who organized the new states and gave content to the new nations. Although all these ideas had some effect on Latin American intellectuals, the vocabulary of republican democracy, understood as a widening of social and political participation, was the most influential. Most Latin American elites had adopted republicanism as the only alternative to monarchy without a clear definition of its political implications, especially regarding the boundaries of civil and political society. Until 1848, republicanism had no real liberal content, contrary to traditional historiography: the idea of the community and the common good, rather than individual rights, were the driving ideas behind all political discourse. The social republicanism of 1848 encouraged Latin American intellectuals and activists to widen the scope of participation in civil society. Artisans became the representatives of the "people," since they were the new actors pressuring for incorporation into civil society.

The authors suggest that the ideas behind 1848 seem to have been most influential in Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and Colombia. They were disseminated through the press, clubs, associations, and other social venues, such as freemasonry and the [End Page 184] banquet as a place for political mobilization. Nevertheless, one must not forget that many of the ideas that occasioned the social uprisings in Europe had already been disseminated through different means, even in America. David Rock rightly points out how the Generación de 1837 in Argentina was already discussing romanticism and Saint-Simonian socialism. Francisco Bilbao published "Sociabilidad Chilena" in 1844, scandalizing Chilean society, attacking clericalism, proposing new forms of distribution of property, and despising the Spanish heritage as an impediment to modernity.

The events of 1848, especially those of February, did have a major impact in Latin America, as described throughout the book. The news, by May, of France's apparently peacefully transition toward the republic produced relief and hope among Latin American liberals under pressure for social democratization. Peruvian "true patriots" gave "glory to republican France," as stated by Natalia Sobrevilla Perea (p. 199). We know that reactions in June were not as optimistic. Fear of the populus reappeared in the political discourse, and the possibility of revolution "à la française," awoke conservative feelings about the natural order of society and a rejection of radical change. Clara Lida...

pdf

Share