This small volume contains three essays that are interesting and thought-provoking. The subjects treated are not unfamiliar to historians in the United States, but it is just this common nature of the points and problems discussed that makes the essays intriguing. The author, Germán Carrera Damas, is a skilled and sensitive scholar, who is concerned with the philosophy of history and with historiography. The ideas that he expresses display deep insight into historical methodology and technique, and leave one convinced that a seminar with him would be a rewarding experience.
The first essay discusses the formation of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie. The author raises the question of how to approach a topic so broad in scope and feels that the answer may lie in the historical novel. He argues that the mingling of fictional characters with actual personalities and events enables the historian to analyze an entire historical process, while at the same time avoiding the distortion that may come with a purely biographical approach. To demonstrate this point he discusses the novel, Los Riberas, written in 1957 by the Venezuelan historian, Mario Briceño-Iragorry. The Riberas family would be at home in a novel of Winston Churchill or Frank Norris; the family achieves wealth and power through unscrupulous dealings, including cheating on government contracts (one of which was to supply food to a leper colony) and acting as a “go-between” for foreign petroleum companies and the Gómez regime. This reminds one of the muckraker novel, but, granted the impact of the latter, it never replaced history writing. Carrera Damas, however, does not generalize and his views are carefully developed.
The second essay is more in the nature of an historical article, because it tells the story of the organizing of the Second Venezuelan Republic in 1813. The author wonders about the motives of the framers of the 1813 Constitution and concludes that the criollos spoke of liberty and equality, but were more concerned with maintaining their privileges. As one criollo wrote his wife at the time, he feared a slave uprising more than he feared the royalist leader, Boves. This thesis is not too different from that of Charles A. Beard, who ascribed reactionary motives to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.
Finally, Carrera Damas writes about the teaching of history in Venezuela. Here is an essay which any history professor will appreciate. The author discusses the question of teacher or researcher; he recognizes the need to refresh his stale notes with the products of recent investigations; and he looks for new ways to approach and treat history. Actually, Carrera Damas sums up this essay with the following comment: “We do not know how a class in history ought to be given, but we have a good idea of what we should have liked to have seen in one.”
