Reforming Chile : cultural politics, nationalism, and the rise of the middle class / Patrick Barr-Melej.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barr-Melej, Patrick.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Middle class--Chile--History--20th century.

Middle class.

Education.

History.

Chile--Politics and government--20th century.

Chile.

Politics and government.

Education--Chile--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

xvi, 288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2001]

Summary:

Highlighting the crucial yet largely overlooked role played by society's middle layers in the historical development of Latin America, Patrick Barr-Melej provides the first comprehensive analysis of the rise of Chile's middle-class reform movement and its profound impact on that country's cultural and political landscapes. He shows how a diverse collection of middle-class intellectuals, writers, politicians, educators, and bureaucrats forged a "progressive" nationalism and advanced an ambitious cultural-political project between the 1890s and 1940s. Together, reformers challenged the power of elite groups and sought to quell working-class revolutionary activism as they endeavored to democratize culture and fortify liberal democracy.

Using sources that range from archival documents and newspapers to short stories, novels, and school textbooks, Barr-Melej examines the reform movement's cultural ideas and their political applications, especially as they were articulated in the areas of literature and public education. In the process, he provides a new framework for understanding Chile's cultural and political evolution, as well as the complicated place of the middle class in a society experiencing the swift changes inherent in capitalist modernization.

Contents:

1 A Troubled Belle Epoque 19

2 Nationalists 51

3 Rewriting Chile Criollismo and the Generation of 1900 77

4 Prose, Politics, and Patria from Alessandri to the Popular Front 103

5 For Culture and Country Middle-Class Reformers in Public Education 141

6 Teaching the "Nation" 171

7 The Three Rs Readers, Representations, and Reformism 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [267]-279) and index.

ISBN:

0807826049

0807849197

OCLC:

45243241