The age of overseas discoveries and conquests: Alexandre Herculano’s Historia de Portugal termination, and Lucas Alaman’s Historia de México beginning

This article is aimed to contribute to the critical discussion about the general features of national historiographies written in Europe and America during the 19th century. As a hypothesis, I suggest that national historiography symbolizes the authors’ ideals of the political constitution of the na...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Ledesma Alonso, Ricardo
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2020
Country:México
Institution:UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO
Repository:Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México
Language:Spanish
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/70925
Online Access:https://moderna.historicas.unam.mx/index.php/ehm/article/view/70925
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:historiografía portuguesa siglo XIX
historiografía mexicana siglo XIX
historiografía nacional
estrategias narrativas
municipalismo
19th century Portuguese historiography
national historiography
narrative strategies
municipalism
Description
Summary:This article is aimed to contribute to the critical discussion about the general features of national historiographies written in Europe and America during the 19th century. As a hypothesis, I suggest that national historiography symbolizes the authors’ ideals of the political constitution of the nation state through their respective narrative components. In developing this approach, I make a comparative study of both national histories of Portugal and Mexico, respectively written by Alexandre Herculano (1810-1877) and Lucas Alamán (1792-1853). The analysis of the narrative place of “termination” or “beginning” assigned in each case to a “same” event —the conquests and overseas discoveries”— will reveal the ideological presuppositions implicit in the narrative decisions of both authors.