This book is presented to scholars with a broad interest in modern languages and literatures. It contains articles written in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The topics rangein time from the Middle Ages to our day; geographically, from Europe and Africa to Latin America; in substance, from literary analysis to the study of manuscripts, stylistics, and the use of acronyms. The authors were given complete freedom to write papers on subjects of their choice, in their respective fields of specialization. The indis treatment, and a pensable ingredients were originality of material or genuine contribution to knowledge in the general area of modern languages and literatures. While responsibility for content rests with individual authors, we deeply appreciate the counsels of wisdom and experience given by Pro fessor Nicolae Iliescu of Harvard University; Professor Rene J asinski, emeritus, of Harvard; Professor Luis A. Murillo, of the University of California at Berkeley; Professor Erich Von Richthofen, of the Uni versity of Toronto. These distinguished scholars, with their usual kindness, interrupted their own work to read portians of the manuscript of particular interest to them. To the Administration of Boston College, we acknowledge a debt of gratitude for the generaus subsidy which encouraged this labor of love among colleagues and helped to bring the project to a successful, printed completion.

Andrés Bello was a towering figure in nineteenth-century Latin America, as influential and as famous there as Thomas Jefferson is in the United States. Poet, politician, educator, essayist, philosopher, he wielded astonishing influence and played a major role in shaping the national identities of newly independent Latin American countries. He held several key government positions, authored Chile's civil code, launched several periodicals, wrote prodigiously on a vast array of subjects, and implemented important educational reforms. Available here in English for the first time, the Selected Writings of Andrés Bello, edited by Iván Jaksic, gathers wide-ranging selections that explore such subjects as grammar and philology, constitutional reform, the aims of education, international relations, historiography, Latin and Roman Law, government and society, and many others. The Selected Writings of Andrés Bello gives us a generous sampling of a gifted thinker who must be included in any understanding of the origins and development of Latin America.

This anthology "decolonizes" the voices of Latin Americans who travel abroad and engage in cultural critiques of their homelands in counterpoint to foreigners' better known accounts of Latin America. The 17 contributions by North and South American academics examine--including entertaining first person accounts--the themes of constructing nations/a national identity post- independence, touring modernity, taking sides, and the art of living and working abroad. References include suggested films (e.g. Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business, 1994) as well as readings. Lacks an index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This book presents a cultural history of Latin America as seen through a symbolic good and a practice – the book, and the act of publication – two elements that have had an irrefutable power in shaping the modern world. The volume combines multiple theoretical approaches and empirical landscapes with the aim to comprehend how Latin American publishers became the protagonists of a symbolic unification of their continent from the 1930s through the 1970s. The Latin American focus responds to a central point in its history: the effective interdependence of the national cultures of the continent. Americanism, until the 1950s, or Latin Americanism, from the onset of the Cold War, were moral frameworks that guided publishers’ thinking and actions and had concrete effects on the process of regional integration. The illustration of how Latin American publishing markets were articulated opens up broader and comparative questions regarding the ways in which the ideas embodied in books also sought to unify other cultural areas. The intersection of cultural, political and economic themes, as well as the style of writing, makes this book an interest to a wide reading public with historical and sociological sensitivity and global cultural curiosity.