Abstract
This article aims to discuss how the theme of liberalism in Latin America in the 19th century was approached in the fields of History and Social Sciences, highlighting similarities and differences between Brazilian and Hispanic American historiographies, with emphasis on the Mexican case. Just as in Brazil, where liberalism was often defined, as in Roberto Schwarz’s famous assertion, as an “misplaced idea,” in other countries in the region, the perception of the existence of a dissonance between “liberal ideas” and “local realities” was also a recurring topic. On the other hand, in several national spaces, this interpretation coexisted, as in the case of Mexico, with the exaltation of liberalism as a kind of “founding myth” of the nation. In this sense, this work demonstrates the ambiguities in the approach of 19th-century Latin American liberalism, understood, on the one hand, as incompatible with the social reality of Latin America, and, on the other, as a structuring element of the State and the nation in the region.
Keywords:
Liberalism; hitoriography; Latin America; Brazil; México