Even 12 years after its original publication in Spanish, there is reason to celebrate the English translation of Julio Ramos’s brilliant contribution to the field of nineteenth-century Latin American cultural criticism. When it was first published back in 1989, it became one of the groundbreaking books that located the nation-building century at the center of literary studies in the field. Now, elegantly translated by John D. Blanco, and with two additional chapters, it should reach a wider audience and contribute to the growing dialogue on the literature of the Americas. In many ways, the book’s power lies in Ramos’s talent for combining insightful close readings of texts with original interpretive moves of considerable sweep that locate writings within the great political, social, and economic changes of the century. This allows him to contribute both to literary criticism and to cultural history broadly construed, offering exemplary articulations between writing and the...

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