The Historiography of Colonial and Modern Bolivia

B OLIVIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY iS characterized by two basic features. First, true research historians as we understand them-men who use primary sources, who work in archives, who acknowledge these sources in their writings-are extremely few, less than a half dozen. These historiographic rarities rotate around the giant of Bolivian history-indeed of Bolivian letters-Gabriel Rene-Moreno (1836-1908). Before Rene-Moreno there was no true historian, and after his death the research historians such as Humberto Vazquez-Machicado (1904-1958), Gunnar Mendoza (1915), Guillermo Ovando Sanz (1917), and others, praised and imitated him. But because these true research historians are so few, Rene-Moreno 's contribution to Bolivia 's history and letters is little known in his own country. The provincially educated Bolivian representing the dying aristocracy, the dynamic middle class, and the economically ever-rising proletariat are all fascinated by either cheap literature or writing of a social nature which includes interpretive history. Because of this Arnold J. Toynbee is far better known and more popular in Bolivia than Rene-Moreno.1

Ancient history · Archaeology · Colonialism · Geography · Historiography · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · History and Politics in Latin America · Politics and Society in Latin America

• Barros Arana, Vicuña Mackenna, Amunátegui

  Open Access•Gertrude Matyoka Yeager•Journal of Interamerican Studies…•1977

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