What Remains: Changing Currents in Colombia’s Republican Historiography

• In Event: The Nation of Regions Revisited: Colombian Historiography from Republicanism to Cocaine

Abstract

This paper considers the contrast between the themes that have remained central in the republican historiography of Colombia and those that have been pushed to the side. Most notably, regionalism has remained an important organizing principle of writing on the nineteenth century. This emphasis reflects both the continued importance of framing research within distinct regional contexts and the regional nature of Colombia’s growing academic infrastructure. Thus, even as the last two decades have seen historians incorporating new approaches – cartographic, gender analysis, ethnicity, legal thought, and popular culture – the place of regional studies, or at least regional emphasis, has endured. In contrast, as scholars have increasingly argued that social history, family history, and ethnic history are inherently political, the emphasis on formal politics, and to a degree on political economy, has faded even though many important questions remain. In surveying this ebb and flow, this presentation will ask whether more has been gained in this transition than has been lost.

Author

• Joshua M Rosenthal, Western Connecticut State University