“When the Guns Thundered, All Citizens Became Soldiers, and Every Breast Breathed War”: Education of the Armed Citizen in XIX Century Colombia

Abstract

Alarcon and Conde offer a study of the training of the armed citizen in the civil wars of nineteenth-century Colombia. The authors not only examine military training handbooks as historical documents offering information on the training of citizens, but investigate the handbooks as cultural artefacts, examining their discourses on and representations of the war and the citizen. Since all citizens had been enrolled into the army during the war of independence, military handbooks were intended not only to teach military tactics but to socialize individuals into identifying as citizens of the new republic. Exploring the intersections between politics and contemporary educational thought, Alarcon and Conde demonstrate how military training sought to shape individuals into both citizens and soldiers.