Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism, and the Rise of the Middle Class

di Patrick M. Barr-Melej (Autore)

The University of North Carolina Press, 2001

A new framework for understanding Chile's cultural and political modernization Highlighting the crucial yet largely overlooked role played by society's middle layers in the historical development of Latin America, Patrick Barr-Melej provides the first comprehensive analysis of the rise of Chile's middle-class reform movement and its profound impact on that country's cultural and political landscapes. He shows how a diverse collection of middle-class intellectuals, writers, politicians, educators, and bureaucrats forged a ""progressive"" nationalism and advanced an ambitious cultural-political project between the 1890s and 1940s. Together, reformers challenged the power of elite groups and sought to quell working-class revolutionary activism as they endeavored to democratize culture and fortify liberal democracy. Using sources that range from archival documents and newspapers to short stories, novels, and school textbooks, Barr-Melej examines the reform movement's cultural ideas and their political applications, especially as they were articulated in the areas of literature and public education. In the process, he provides a new framework for understanding Chile's cultural and political evolution, as well as the complicated place of the middle class in a society experiencing the swift changes inherent in capitalist modernization.

• Autore: Patrick M. Barr-Melej
• Editore: The University of North Carolina Press
• Anno: 2001
• Rilegatura: Paperback / softback
• Pagine: 312 p.
• Dimensioni: 235 x 156 mm
• Peso: 458 gr.
• EAN: 9780807849194

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