Abstract

MARICHAL, Carlos. Reflections on the generation of 1900 from the book of Francisco Bulnes El porvenir de las naciones hispanoamericanas ante las recientes conquistas de Europa y los Estados Unidos (1899). Rev. hist. Am. [online]. 2023, n.166, pp.137-162.  Epub Feb 27, 2024. ISSN 2663-371X.  https://doi.org/10.35424/rha.166.2023.4319.

In this essay I focus on an analysis of Bulnes the book of essays by Francisco Bulnes, El porvenir de las naciones hispanoamericanas ante las recientes conquistas de Europa y los Estados Unidos (1899), in order to explain the originality of this work, but also to emphasize the great weight of its racist discourse. In this regard, the essay also points out parallels and counterpoints with other authors from the region who reflected and wrote about several of the same issues that concerned Bulnes, who was a devotee of the positivist school. We also emphasize the fact that Bulnes was in communion with many and diverse schools of thought, including contemporary trends in thought on biology, race, collective psychology, as well as a number of trends in interpreting economics, politics, and history that were common among leading intellectuals of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. As a source we use numerous period works, an extensive secondary bibliography and especially the original edition of the work by Francisco Bulnes, El porvenir de las naciones hispanoamericanas, published in 1899.

Keywords : race; biology; Latin America; positivism; intellectual history.