Publications on Puerto Rican history have increased greatly over the past decade. Perhaps more importantly, many of these recent books and articles have raised important questions dealing with social and economic issues. The seriousness of the research witnessed in many of these recent works and the lucidity in the presentation of some of their arguments have placed the discussion of the island’s peculiar historical processes alongside the broader discourse on Hispanic Caribbean currents. But when a student or a professor had wanted to gather a general picture of the new interpretations on Puerto Rican history, the task seemed overwhelming. Most textbooks on the island’s history either were dated or dealt simply with a chronology of political events, devoid of references to the society or the economy. At times, the general reader’s access to the recent scholarly works was difficult. This has changed now, thanks to Picó’s Historia general.
Reared in the solid tradition of medieval history and well acquainted with the prosopographical techniques of the French school and the more recent quantitative analysis, Fernando Picó is perhaps one of the island’s leading historians. His research on the coffee municipality of Utuado, published in some of his earlier books, has enhanced our understanding of the changing fortunes of the island’s peasantry.
Historia general traces Puerto Rico’s history from its geological formation, some 135 million years ago, up to the events which stirred the public when the hearings on the ambush and assassination by the police of two proindependence youths at the Cerro Maravilla were aired on local TV a few years ago. It covers recent research on topics such as the development of the island’s Indian culture and the recent discussion on the class structure of the Puerto Rican nationalist movement, which staged an uprising in 1950. Throughout, Picó stresses that Puerto Rico has evidenced a formative development, which he correctly explains as being more in the nature of an ongoing process than an accomplished fact. Aptly documented as Picó’s work is, one would have expected more than a passing reference to the colonial nature of Puerto Rico’s relations first with Spain and then with the United States. Historia general reminds us that the often-discussed theme of Puerto Rico’s colonial status still awaits an adequate treatment by his torians. Nevertheless, Picó has superbly synthesized more locally oriented social problems in this book.
