The essays gathered in this book do not represent an exhaustive analysis of the Hispanic American nineteenth century nor a comprehensive review of its multiple edges. Rather than a demonstration, these essays seek to indicate, in the etymological sense of pointing a finger: they point to a problem but do not solve it; they pose or suggest a question but do not always answer it; they draw attention to a subject, like the first shot of a feature film, but do not prevent anyone who wishes to do so from looking away.
To a large extent, these studies could be included in what has been called intellectual history or history of thought. Beyond labels, however, they openly advocate for a revaluation not only of the primary sources of the nineteenth century but also of the very “language” in which they still speak to us: the idioms, commonplaces, metaphors, expressions, and lexicon that made up the shared catalog of literary resources then available to the educated to describe, interpret, and transform the world they inhabited. There are no pretensions of authority or airs of apodictic truth; there is, however, the conviction that the topics addressed still challenge us as Colombians, as Hispanic Americans, as history buffs, or as dilettantes, an adjective that has unjustly come to have a negative connotation. Although devoted to the nineteenth century, these topics have not lost their topicality. Hopefully, thus, readers will be motivated to rethink phenomena they may have taken for granted or relegated to the drawer of self-evident truths.