Ampliando miradas

Chile y su historia en un tiempo global

Bibliographic Data

ID2806729
AuthorsWilliam F Sater (California State University, Long Beach, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume91
Issue1
Pages181-182
Publication date2011-02-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-2010-100
OpenAlexW2050773271
LanguageEN
Citations received9

Editors Fernando Purcell and Alfredo Riquelme have amassed a number of essays focusing on the international forces that impacted Chile and that nation’s relationship with the world community. Joaquín Fermandois’s excellent study begins this work, noting that Chile, like most nations, is the product of international forces, particularly ideologically. The very notions of independence, republicanism, democracy, as well as later Marxism, and the more modern feminism, often spring from the minds of foreigners. But he warns we should not completely ignore the cultural differences. Instead we should base our work on recognized national entities, the influence of culture, and finally distinguish between international and intranational relations.Rafael Sagredo affirms this thesis, showing how European scientists came to Chile essentially to inventory its resources and discover the limits of this distant land. Perhaps the best example of these scholars is Claudio Gay, who arrived at a pivotal time, after Chile defeated the Peruvian Bolivian Confederation, to study the new nation, and who provided a study that subsequent historians followed.Julio Pinto notes that foreign ideologies, specifically American notions of democratic government, influenced the creation of the Chilean Republic. But the United States was by no means a democracy, and thus Chile’s attempt to integrate its lower classes, as in the United States, proved disastrous. Eventually Chileans had to repudiate North American ideas, just as the Americans did, in order to create the basis for their own variant of democracy.Another ideological import, according to Nara Milanich, was foreign legal systems, in this case, the Code Napoléon. The author argues that Spanish colonial laws permitted bastard children to establish their paternity. Due to the advent of the new laws and the efforts of Andrés Bello, the Latin American nations enshrined a “transnational legal patriarchy” in place of the old “nacionalismo nacional.” The unfortunate result of these new imports was the creation of a new subclass of children who could not establish their paternity or obtain support from their putative fathers. These changes would not have occurred had it not been for the supposedly modernizing influence of France’s legal codes.After 1883, Peru and Chile unsuccessfully tried to hold a plebiscite to resolve the ownership of Tacna and Arica. With a diplomatic solution impossible, the two nations tried to win the hearts and minds of the disputed area’s inhabitants to align themselves with one of the two competing nations. Chile used a combination of “nacionalismo oficial” and repression of pro-Lima forces, while Peru funded anti-Chilean elements. Ironically, although neither side succeeded, this resulted in creating a unique sense of identity for the region, one different from that of the heartland.Almost predictably, as Stefan Rinke notes, US culture influenced Chile, introducing new architecture, skyscrapers, dances such as the shimmy, the YMCA, the YWCA, and boxing. Conservative Chileans repudiated these as symbols of American cultural materialism and vulgarity; the younger generation was more receptive. The result was the forging of a large mass culture, which altered the development of Chile. Predictably, as Fernando Purcell writes, Hollywood films conveyed an image of the United States as well as purveying one of South America. Initially, the Americans slighted Latin Americans by not distinguishing national differences or simply denigrating them collectively. A desire to win Latin American support during World War II, as well as a more developed sensitivity, altered the images. Still, the inability to see themselves depicted as unique encouraged the Chileans to create their own “more nationalistic” images and to explore their national history. Years later, the US “hippie culture” spawned a Chilean Woodstock at Piedra Roja, a Santiago suburb. Although characterized by class differences, the Chilean youth’s embrace of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” demonstrated the attraction of a global culture. Although repudiated by the Left and the Right as being bourgeois or immoral, the hippie culture lasted throughout the Unidad Popular period. Health issues, the side effects of industrial and mineral resource exploitation, would also migrate from the United States. As Ángela Vergara observes, local medical issues morphed into a hemisphere-wide problem. The resulting investigation and cures, initially funded by various international and private agencies, influenced the Chilean state to become involved in public health.Just as Chile became part of an international medical system, it also became involved in the Cold War. As Olga Ulianova notes, however, there is a tendency to overstate the influence of the Soviet Union and the United States on Chile’s highly developed political system. While both nations spent substantial sums to prop up or bring down the UP government, it was domestic actors who did so. Other, less powerful nations also attempted to influence Chile. According to Raffaele Nocera, post-1945 Italy attempted to influence Santiago in hopes of finding a market for its goods and surplus population. Clearly it could not compete with the United States, but its Christian Democratic Party did develop close ties, which obviously influenced Santiago’s political development.These essays are like appetizers: they whet the appetite but do not sate our hunger. Generally well researched, they offer novel insights which will encourage additional research for future scholars to undertake

Art · Democracy · Economic history · Ethnology · Government (linguistics) · Humanities · Ideology · Independence (probability theory) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America

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