Without doubt the single most pervasive and important phenomenon of twentieth-century Latin America has been the awakening of aspirations for a sense of identity, for recognition, and for material improvement which are summed up in the word nationalism. Its universality by no means implies uniformity: nationalism has at various times and in various places been aristocratic or popular, introspective or xenophobic, conservative or revolutionary. Because it is elusive and many faceted, nationalism invites consideration from a variety of viewpoints ranging from the rigorously methodological to the meticulously descriptive. Professor Masur’s volume, Nationalism in Latin America, tends toward the latter end of the continuum.

Avoiding semantic thickets of definition and analysis, Professor Masur has traced Latin American nationalism from its colonial seedbed through its nineteenth-century roots to its twentieth-century flowering in individual countries. His chronological approach has the merit of lending continuity to a subject whose varied manifestations can easily obscure the similarity of its sources and objectives. Independence and its leaders, for example, while not per se nationalistic, have provided many of the conditions and much of the symbolism necessary for modern Latin American nationalism. Professor Masur has ably differentiated the development of nineteenth-century Latin American and European attitudes toward nationhood, pointing out that European nationalisms glorified their past while Latin Americans rejected theirs. In dealing with contemporary nationalism, Masur has done well to emphasize the importance of intellectual and artistic currents such as Indianism as a means of accepting the past and promoting a sense of national integration.

In this volume Professor Masur has revealed a sensitivity to nationalism as an ideology, a political program, and a “state of mind.” It is a useful addition to the small body of literature on this important subject.