Chilean historian explores nation’s past through rare texts
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In Chile, historian Gonzalo Peralta examined eight historical accounts based on diaries and testimonies from various figures connected to the country’s past.
Peralta’s book, Una historia material: El origen, confección y trayectoria de ocho libros extraordinarios, focuses on individuals like Luis de Cartagena, Francisco Maldonado de Silva, and José Miguel Carrera, highlighting how their urgent writing produced unique and sometimes risky books.
The book, published by La Pollera Ediciones, delves into the historical context surrounding these works, analyzing how they were created, printed, and circulated. Peralta investigated the conditions under which the texts came to be, drawing on sources like the Silabario magazine and the collection of the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, to include relevant images.
Peralta aimed to provide a concise overview of Chilean history and literature through these material objects, demonstrating how the books themselves are filled with historical significance. The 112-page study features a diverse range of authors including a cloistered nun, a philosopher, an Italian, a founding father, a future Argentine president, a bibliographer, and a political prisoner from the Pinochet dictatorship.
