Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Middle ClassHighlighting the crucial yet largely overlooked role played by society's middle layers in the historical development of Latin America, Patrick Barr-Melej provides the first comprehensive analysis of the rise of Chile's middle-class reform movement and its profound impact on that country's cultural and political landscapes. He shows how a diverse collection of middle-class intellectuals, writers, politicians, educators, and bureaucrats forged a "progressive" nationalism and advanced an ambitious cultural-political project between the 1890s and 1940s. Together, reformers challenged the power of elite groups and sought to quell working-class revolutionary activism as they endeavored to democratize culture and fortify liberal democracy. Using sources that range from archival documents and newspapers to short stories, novels, and school textbooks, Barr-Melej examines the reform movement's cultural ideas and their political applications, especially as they were articulated in the areas of literature and public education. In the process, he provides a new framework for understanding Chile's cultural and political evolution, as well as the complicated place of the middle class in a society experiencing the swift changes inherent in capitalist modernization. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 A Troubled Belle Epoque | 19 |
2 Nationalists | 51 |
3 Rewriting Chile Criollismo and the Generation of 1900 | 77 |
4 Prose Politics and Patria from Alessandri to the Popular Front | 103 |
5 For Culture and Country MiddleClass Reformers in Public Education | 141 |
6 Teaching the Nation | 171 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Alessandri alessandrista aristocrats Arturo Alessandri Palma ASXX Balmaceda campesinos campo chilenidad chileno civic education conservative country’s countryside criollismo criollista critic cuentos cultural Darío Salas decades democratization Diario Ilustrado Durand economic Edwards Bello El Mercurio elite elite’s Encina Frente Popular Guillermo Labarca Historia de Chile huaso Ibáñez Ibid ideas ideological inquilinos intellectuals Joaquín Edwards Bello La Nación Labarca Hubertson labor landowners Lastarria Latin Latorre leaders Letelier Liberal liceos literary Luis Mercurio mesocrats middle-class reformers Ministry nationalist newspaper nineteenth obligatory primary Oficios oligarchic Palacios Parliamentary Republic Party patria patriotism pedagogical Pedro Aguirre Cerda Pinochet political Portalian president presidential primary education primary instruction primary schools Providencias public education Public Instruction Radicals Raza chilena Recabarren reformist Republic’s Revista de Educación revolutionary rural Sanfuentes Santiago Silva social question Socialist society state’s teachers tion traditionalist twentieth century unions University of Chile urban Valparaíso workers working-class zamacueca