La Obra De Carlos Fuentes

The history of culture within the disciplines that make up the history has been strongly questioned . This is due to two main factors . The first, the object of study , the term culture is extremely broad , vague and ambiguous . From the anthropological definition of the term, where culture is all man-made , to the two hundred -odd definitions given by American anthropologists , to date there is no single vision of what culture is . Speaking of cultural history would speak of mass culture, high culture or popular culture. What culture?

Secondly , as a result of the above, are different disciplines intermingle and confuse the concept of culture as well , for example , there is the history of civilization, the history of aesthetics , art history , history of thought, History of ideas , and even the history of literature, which often are confused with the history of culture.

The present work refers to the work of Carlos Fuentes The Buried Mirror , which we consider a positive attempt to write a history of culture in Latin America, but , like all cultural history , and coupled with the problems described above and own of this discipline , the work in question also addresses political, economic and social aspects that affect our continent that complement the " purely " cultural vision in this book. Perhaps one of the enriching elements of the work in this area is the basting have consistently and accurately lately mentioned aspects , resulting in an interesting , comprehensive and synthetic work of Latin American cultural problem.

A brief history of history of culture

Voltaire was, without doubt, the first to attempt a history of culture in his History of the customs and the Spirit of nations, this enlightened thinker, not only lays the foundation of the philosophy of history, but was also the first to develop a history of culture in modern terms. After Hegel , in Berlin and courses , particularly in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History and Lessons of aesthetics , plus lessons in philosophy of religion , clearly convey his conception of what history and culture, these monumental courses are definitely the starting point of both the philosophy of culture and history of contemporary culture.

Then the history of culture will make significant progress in the thinking of the Germanic languages ​​, the German Wilhelm Dilthey their spirit Sciences , Swiss Jacob Burckhardt in his History of Italian Renaissance culture and the Dutch Johan Huizinga with twilight of the Middle Ages and his Essays on the history of culture, will fill much of the historical thought of the first quarter of the twentieth century , these authors created patterns for what is now meant by culture history .

A little further today stand in the field of the History of Culture authors as Alfred Weber , who dabbled in the history of culture and the sociology of culture , the U.S. Will Durand and his wife Ariel wrote the monumental History of civilization in different volumes , besides the U.S. also Ralph Turner with his work the great cultures of humanity , translated into Spanish , and the Spanish Second Serrano Poncela supplemented his History of Western literature with a comprehensive text entitled Western culture , must also appoint the work of another Spanish , Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois , History of world culture . We can not forget the contributions that scholars gave this discipline with its famous Werner Jaeger 's Paideia or ideals of Greek culture, or Erich Khaler his universal history of man. Not to mention the monumental work of Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History .

Highlights the work of Fernand Braudel in the French context , particularly in all matters relating to the life, culture and economy in the time of Philip II , most recently Braudel wrote about the cultural identity of the French people , an issue that featured three volumes , which is considered one of the main references in national cultural history. Also the work of Marc Bloch and Lucien Fevre around culture and religious phenomena as Lutheranism and erasmismo , with the Protestant Reformation. Not to mention the recent contributions of Jacques Legof on medieval culture. In addition , the work of Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias , who are connected to the sociological and anthropological studies of Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss .

Without any doubt, the Cultural Studies has been an important contribution of sociology and anthropology Saxon , it has contributed significantly to strengthen the studies on cultural history, not the names of Frank Boas, Margaret Meats , Ruth Benedict, among others forget who are linked to the English Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, whose contributions have impacted history studies of recent culture.

In Latin America include works worthy of review as the work of Pedro Henríquez Ureña , A Brief History of Hispanic American culture and literary currents in Hispanic America , texts dating back to the 40s of the twentieth century and complement each other well as the Argentine José Luis Romero, dedicated to the history of ideas and life of Latin American cities. Also deserves mention for its aesthetic quality and its content historiographical work of Venezuelan Mariano Picon Salas entitled From conquest to independence. We can not forget to mention the work of Colombian writer Germán Arciniegas , entitled The continent of seven colors . History of culture in Latin America, so far the best work of its kind .

Finally, we take a big leap to get to the work of the Mexican Carlos Fuentes, who in his work The buried mirror [1 ] made an effort to create a history of culture in Latin America in clear, simple terms , the scope of every reader , stripped of jargon and , at the same time without losing quality and maintaining a sense of the historical and the historiographical spotless.

Mexican Carlos Fuentes and historical- literary tradition

In Latin America, Mexico , for having had a viceregal position , and all the benefits that this condition involved , has cultivated the history and historiography since ancient times. Large chronic pigs are example also having early had an institution like the colonial university, gave way to the existence of good libraries and archives, indispensable for historical research. At the same time it should be noted the early presence of so-called refugees or intellectuals who moved from Spain to America fleeing persecution Franco after the Spanish Civil War ended . The presence of Jose Gaos , and other eminent thinkers gave rise , with American intelligence Alfonso Reyes, Silvio Zavala , Edmundo O'gorman , Antonio Gómez Robledo , Leopoldo Zea , Hyperion and members of the group,

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