The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America

by James E Sanders

Overview

In the nineteenth century, Latin America was home to the majority of the world's democratic republics. Many historians have dismissed these political experiments as corrupt pantomimes of governments of Western Europe and the United States. Challenging that perspective, James E. Sanders contends that Latin America in this period was a site of genuine political innovation and popular debate reflecting Latin Americans' visions of modernity. Drawing on archival sources in Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay, Sanders traces the circulation of political discourse and democratic practice among urban elites, rural peasants, European immigrants, slaves, and freed blacks to show how and why ideas of liberty, democracy, and universalism gained widespread purchase across the region, mobilizing political consciousness and solidarity among diverse constituencies. In doing so, Sanders reframes the locus and meaning of political and cultural modernity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822357803
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	10/03/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

James E. Sanders is Professor of History at Utah State University. He is the author of Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race, and Class in Nineteenth-Century Colombia, also published by Duke UniversityPress.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Prologue 1
Introduction. American Republican Modernity 5
1. Garibaldi, the Garibaldinos, and the Guerra Grande 24
2. "A Pueblo Unfit to Live among Civilized Nations": Conceptions of Modernity after Independence 39
3. The San Patricio Battalion 64
4. Eagles of American Democracy: The Flowering of American Republican Modernity 81
5. Francisco Bilbao and the Atlantic Imagination 136
6. David Peña and Black Liberalism 161
7. The Collapse of American Republican Modernity 176
Conclusion. A "Gift That the New World Has Sent Us" 225
Notes 239
Bibliography 297
Index 331

What People are Saying About This

Path of Empire: Panama and the California Gold Rush - Aims McGuinness

"Where historians of Latin America have tended to dismiss or overlook the period between the 1840s and the 1870s, James E. Sanders shows that during these years, the continent was a place of remarkable political innovation. Striking at the heart of Eurocentrism, he finds compelling evidence of how supposedly universal ideals, such as liberty, were generated not just in Europe but precisely in places that Eurocentrists have long written off as backwaters of history, places such as Colombia, Haiti, and Mexico."

The Return of the Native: Indians and Myth-making in Spanish America, 1810–1930 - Rebecca Earle

"The Vanguard of the Atlantic World is a fundamental contribution not only to our understanding of nineteenth-century Latin America, but also to the broader scholarly debate about the origins of modern democratic republicanism. James E. Sanders argues that in the nineteenth century Spanish America was the most democratic region of the world. In so doing, he rejects claims that Latin America has always stood on the margins of democratic culture and modernity, and he speaks directly to current debates about the relationship between capitalism, modernity, and democracy."

Editorial Reviews

"Insightful, profusely documented, creatively organized, and clearly written,... The Vanguard of the Atlantic World shall become indispensable to those interested in the history of political culture, democracy, and republicanism not only in Latin America but across the globe."

Ethnohistory - Victor M. Uribe-Uran

"[T]his is an enormously thought-provoking book, one that should spark productive debate and dialogue, within Latin Americanist circles and beyond."

The Americas - Karen D. Caplan

"Ambitious and important. . . . James E. Sanders must be praised for his perseverance in stubbornly maintaining his focus on popular engagement with the egalitarian, democratic, and republican ideas that pervaded the nineteenth-century Atlantic world."

Hispanic American Historical Review - Guy Thomson

"While The Vanguard of the Atlantic World speaks most directly to scholars of intellectual and political history, students interested in racial relations would benefit greatly from this book. Throughout, Sanders writes in a lucid and engaging style. Without a doubt, Sanders successfully demonstrates the importance of Latin American political thought for the nineteenth century and beyond."

History - Rachael L. Pasierowska

The book focuses mainly on the midcentury period, roughly 1840-80, and covers important encounters between transatlantic republicans in the process of nation building...An important book.

Choice - K. L. Racine

"Where historians of Latin America have tended to dismiss or overlook the period between the 1840s and the 1870s, James E. Sanders shows that during these years, the continent was a place of remarkable political innovation. Striking at the heart of Eurocentrism, he finds compelling evidence of how supposedly universal ideals, such as liberty, were generated not just in Europe but precisely in places that Eurocentrists have long written off as backwaters of history, places such as Colombia, Haiti, and Mexico."

Path of Empire: Panama and the California Gold Rush - Aims McGuinness

"The Vanguard of the Atlantic World is a fundamental contribution not only to our understanding of nineteenth-century Latin America, but also to the broader scholarly debate about the origins of modern democratic republicanism. James E. Sanders argues that in the nineteenth century Spanish America was the most democratic region of the world. In so doing, he rejects claims that Latin America has always stood on the margins of democratic culture and modernity, and he speaks directly to current debates about the relationship between capitalism, modernity, and democracy."

The Return of the Native: Indians and Myth-making in Spanish America, 1810-1930 - Rebecca Earle