The Political Power of the Word: Press and Oratory in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. IVÁN JAKSI (ed.): London: ILAS, University of London, 2002.

Abstract

Iván Jaksi has made a name for himself by exploring the connections between scholarship and nation building in nineteenth-century Latin America. In his superb biography of Andrés Bello, Jaksi, for example, showed the importance that grammar and literary and legal studies held in Chile's path to nationhood. The collection under review edited by Jaksi seeks to explore further the relationship between the written word and the consolidation of the nation state: some essays study the fascinating yet little understood function of the liberal and conservative nineteenth-century press whereas others investigate the role of sacred and liberal oratory.