Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875–2002 by Marco Palacios (review)

The Latin Ainericanist, Spring 2007 Further, Overmyer-Velazquez provides a reinterpretation of the Porfiriato and the reasons for the Revolution that should have scholars looking at more cultural explanations for the outbreak of war in Mexico in 1910. Also, his fascinating discussion of how Diaz used his presidency and political connections in his hometown to control Oaxaca from Mexico City deserves wide attention. His analysis of Porfirian Oaxaca is solid and innovative, based on extensive archival research in Mexico City, Oaxaca, and the United States, newspapers from the era, and a broad secondary literature. The case he makes for Oaxaca’scultural history in the Porfiriato stands out from other regional studies already published. It made this reviewer question whether this was a case of Oaxacan exceptionalism, or if these processes were nationwide . Hopefully this is the first of many studies of the urban Porfiriato, especially of secondary cities like Guanajuato, Merida and Veracruz. Nathan Clarke Department of History University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign B E M E N LEGITIMACY A N D VIOLENCE: A HISTORY OF COLOMBIA, 1875-2002. BYMARCO PALACIOS. TRANS. RICHARD STOLLER. DUKE UP, 2006, P. 299, $22.95. Colombian Historian Marco Palacios left his country in 1990in one of the most turbulent times for Colombia, invaded by horrifying waves of violence and urban terrorism. In 1994 he published a piece on Colombian history that one of his colleagues called “a gloomy vision” of the country, comments the author. Having spent the years of his youth in Colombia he knows very well what he is talking about. A skillful historian, Palacios gives the public a sharp, broad and yet very complete view of Colombia’s twentieth-century history. Between Legifiiiiacyand Violence offers a meticulous document of the historical trajectory of Colombia from the 1870s to the present. To better understand the history of Colombia, Palacios starts by giving the reader a clear idea of those far decades in the nineteenth century, where the roots to Colombia’s problems lay. After the mid-nineteenth century the North Atlantic region sees an increased development in its commercial, technological, and intellectual activity. With this capitalist expansion Colombia’s ruling class has to face the decision to incorporate the country into the modern industrial world, which means looking into the institutional, political, and economic models of Europe and the United States. That was a difficult and controversial project to undertake since there was no consensus about what the real contents of those changing models were. Another factor to complicate matters was that Colombia’s rulers and thinkers were much divided on political issues. If a consensus could be found, however, the results would have been very positive. This was not a new challenge for Colombia, struggling with modernity since the eighteenth century. After Book Reviews their independence, the real problems of Colombia became more visible, such as the immensity of its territory in comparison to its population, its stricken poverty, and the inadequacy of its public administration. Colombia’s geography offered a great obstacle to prosperity and democracy; poverty, technological backwardness and the damaging concentration of wealth were some of the problems. Palacios gives accurate details and explanations as to the origins of the many political, economical, and social problems that have dragged on into the present. The four tumultuous civil wars (1876-77, 1885-86, 1895, and 1899-1902) revealed already at those early stages the existent disagreements among the Colombian elite about how to structure the state’s relationships with the individual, the Catholic Church, and the country’s diverse regions. Palacios comments on the mixed race and the mosaic of isolated regions, the rural life and the situation of peasants and poverty. As history shows, social and ethnic inequalities are not issues of the present. They grew throughout the nineteenth century, producing economic and political effects. The economy seessome positive modernization and growth with the rise of coffeeafter 1910, but the market also determines who survives the race to progress. Colombian capitalism reinforced patterns of agrarian individualism by ignoring collectiveresponsibility and solidarity and leaving behind a society pervaded of indignities and deprivations. The role of statist nationalism-so vital for the economic modernization of many Latin American countries...