The Chilean historical community lost one of its prominent members with the death of Gonzalo Izquierdo in December 1990. Izquierdo graduated from the University of Chile in 1961 and obtained an M. A. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. His main research interest was the history of ideas, particularly Latin American political thought, where he made important contributions, especially to legitimize an area of historical discipline that had been overshadowed by the notorious success of Chilean political historians. Izquierdo published a long list of articles, noteworthy among which are “October of 1905” (Historia 13, 1976), “Some Considerations on Property as a Natural Right” (Cuadernos de Historia 4, 1984), and “The Evolution of the Ideas of Simón Bolívar” in Perspectiva Histórica de Simón Bolívar (1983). These articles are relevant as innovative and refined pieces of research.
His books included La sociedad de agricultura en el siglo XIX. Un estudio de ideologías chilenas (1968), Sobre la libertad política (1978), and La libertad política en el libéralisme del siglo XIX (1979). His major work was his three-volume Historia de Chile, published shortly before his death. In the best tradition of Chilean “monumental” histories, this work complements historical data with insightful analysis of historical and ideological problems and suggestions for further research.
Although Izquierdo taught at Berkeley and the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, most of his teaching career took place at the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad Católica de Chile, where he headed the Instituto de Historia during the turbulent years 1972-73. Besides his wife and seven children, Izquierdo left a group of disciples whom he had trained and encouraged to pursue the history of ideas in Chile.
His work granted for Gonzalo Izquierdo a place in Chilean historiography, in the tradition initiated by Alberto Edwards and Mario Góngora, of whom he was a disciple. He was a correspondent member of the Spanish Royal Academy of History and a member of the Chilean Academy of History. His inaugural speech at the Chilean institution, “Consideraciones en torno a la historia de las ideas” (1986), is an important methodological and philosophical reflection on the validity and perspectives of this historiographic approach.
