Raúl Silva Castro, Director of the Chilean Academy, poet, literary critic, longtime editorial writer for El Mercurio of Santiago, and visiting professor at several universities in the United States, has written an interesting little book about the career of José Manuel Balmaceda Fernández, president of Chile from 1886 until the end of the ill-fated civil war of 1891.
This war, its causes, and disastrous consequences, have been subjects of great interest ever since. Admirers of Balmaceda have maintained that the war was brought on by the men of a conservative and unenlightened congress, perhaps in league with foreign interest, concerned with their own selfish ambitions, while the president was a true liberal who cared about the fate of the masses and the future of responsible democratic government in Chile.
Not so, says the author. The congressional opposition was just as patriotic as the president and did not support foreign interests in Chile. In fact, the president brought on most of the trouble himself and acted like a man who had completely taken leave of his senses during the crisis.
The account is well written throughout and will be of value to anyone interested in this period of Chilean history. The only criticism is the absence of footnotes and bibliography which would have made the work more useful to the researcher.
