Republics of the New World

Hilda Sabato's new book is a great experiment in interpreting the meaning and establishment of republicanism in Latin America between 1820 and 1870. Republics of the New World is written in a light style but demonstrates very profound and rigorous thinking. The author uses few endnotes but supports her assertions with a vast and diverse bibliography of works—published in all the countries that she refers to, in addition to countries beyond the book's geographical focus.Even though she misses some recent and more regional studies, Republics of the New World is a great effort of synthesis; it also offers a very suggestive interpretation that tries to place the construction of the nation-state in Latin America within a more global narrative since republican regimes were based on the concept of popular sovereignty, a new political foundation for a historical process that included countries such as England, revolutionary France, and North America. Recognized as the doyen of nineteenth-century Latin American political history, Sabato masterfully argues for leaving behind interpretations of that history as one of failure, chaos, and anarchy. The author takes into account three different aspects that have been studied separately during the last three decades. However, they are closely linked with the main issues of her text: republicanism and what she calls the republican experiment. The practices she refers to are elections, civic militias or citizens in arms, and public opinion. These practices centered on political representation and helped to define the participation of that new subject of the modern nation-states—the citizens. Thus, Sabato tries to focus and analyze “the relationship between people and government that developed after the adoption of popular sovereignty as a founding principle of power” in all the republics that she discusses (p. 9).The book is divided into five chapters. In the first one, Sabato offers a broad view of the historiography of republicanism and concludes that the formation and participation of citizens became the main impulse driving the political dynamics of the new nations. Elections, the fundamental practice of all regimes of popular representation, are analyzed in the second chapter. These elections did not conform to our currently held ideal of democracy—during the nineteenth century democracy was not completely established, and it was controlled by the few—but as Sabato points out, they did open channels for some of those who comprised the many (indigenous, mulatto, and biracial individuals) to reach power.The formation of civilian militias, later called national guards, in most Latin American nations was another aspect of the new republican politics. Sabato affirms that through pronunciamientos, uprisings, and rebellions—often seen as negative phenomena in the historiography—these militias participated in some of those mobilizations, which allowed the many to have a deciding role in the development of political events normally dominated by the few.The fourth chapter moves on to discuss public opinion, how it worked and how it was disseminated from different civic, economic, and political associations (called sociabilidades in Spanish), some of them rooted in old practices, others new and created during the nineteenth century (Masonic lodges, guilds, juntas patrióticas, sociedades de amigos, clubs). Public opinion also received much support from the press, which was multiplying and broadening its coverage throughout the nineteenth century. Public opinion was dominated by the few but frequently tried to include the many by practices like the reading aloud of writings, formal education (which is not discussed by Sabato), and civic ceremonies.Finally, in the last chapter, the most important of the whole book, she analyzes what she has called Latin American republicanism as a revolutionary experiment and links together all the practices mentioned in the aforementioned chapters. Overall, Sabato highlights the relationship between the few and the many; although this relationship was socially and politically unequal, Sabato points out that it successfully allowed those republics to function. Sabato then directly addresses the still current historiographical debate over interpretations of Latin America as violent and antidemocratic.In summary, this book will be required reading for those interested in the political history of Latin America (even though Sabato does not address some themes due to the wide time span covered in her book). The book is a must not only because of the novel interpretation that she offers but also because it is full of new ideas that help to think in new ways about the process of nation-state building for our continent, inserted within a more global history of republicanism

Economic history · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Latin Americans · Library science · Literature · Meaning (existential) · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Representation (politics) · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science) · Subject (documents) · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America