As historians, we rarely question the validity of our profession or contemplate its impact on society. Traditionally, history has signified academia, which, as we all know, is hardly the locus of power. In the newly emerging nineteenth-century Chilean nation, however, the study of history proved crucially important in shaping the country’s attitudes toward itself and its future.
Allen Woll has carefully described the two schools of historical thought that developed in Chile: the first, led by Andrés Bello, argued that history should be a compilation of facts impartially presented in a narrative form. José Victorino Lastarria, while accepting the necessity of basing scholarship on research, granted more latitude than did Bello to historians, permitting them to use their writing for political ends. The differences between these two methodologies at times became acrimonious. Bello, who controlled the intellectual establishment, managed to isolate Lastarria. Slowly, however, young scholars began writing interpretive studies, and eventually the two schools merged into one, which emphasized using research but which also permitted historians to interpret their data for political or, in some cases, even personal ends.
Soon Liberals and Conservatives had their respective paladins: Lastarria, Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, and Diego Barros Arana used their scholarship to prove the value of Liberalism and often to attack the abuses committed by the Montt administration; José Ignacio Eyzaguirre and José Hipólito Salas, on the other hand, searched through the past to demonstrate the majesty of the Roman Catholic Church in order to protect it from an increasingly aggressive secular state. Historians were also pressed into the service of the nation to advance Santiago’s diplomatic claims, proving that Chile rightly owned Patagonia and the Atacama Desert. (Ironically, other historians repudiated this narrow view to urge that Chile adopt a more generous spirit and join the Americanist movement.) Historians also labored to alter the nature of Chile’s educational system, arguing over the merits of various textbooks as well as the role of the public school. Finally, historians became involved in discussing, sometimes quite heatedly, new intellectual currents like Comte’s Positivism. As Woll convincingly argues, Chile’s historical scholars, while remaining true to their craft, willingly subordinated their efforts to advance particular causes or movements.
While Woll’s book proves a valuable addition to the study of Chilean intellectual history, it lacks a unifying theme. Perhaps because so many of the chapters have earlier appeared as articles, the finished product seems choppy and disjointed. The study, moreover, would have benefited from the author’s inclusion of some material on the historian-as-politician. Amunátegui and Vicuña Mackenna were presidential contenders in the late 1870s, and the latter constantly tried to influence the government’s conduct of the War of the Pacific. Similarly, Woll might have included material on how the various historian-politicians, including Barros Arana, rationalized their participation in the 1891 revolution and how they interpreted that event within the context of Chile’s evolution. Despite these omissions, Wolfs work provides an excellent understanding of the creation of Chilean historiography and demonstrates how newly independent nations used their past in the process of nation-building and for resolving domestic political issues.
