Modernizacion urbana en America Latina. De las grandes aldeas a las metropolis masificadas

摘要

The book forms part of the historiography of urban culture and attitudes regarding ways of representing the city. In recent decades, urban history has taken on board studies from small- scale micro-histories about the city, its spaces and representations. These help understand the processes and meanings in very particular terms. In this sense, it is an uncommon work within the work compared to those produced in recent years; its panoramic view gives a Latin American perspective within a time span, ranging from the big villages to the crowded metropolises. What are the material forms and representations, concepts and scope of urban modernization within the period? These are the questions that guide the essay, which bases itself on broad literary foundations. Although there was an early, continental-scale rough plan for modernization in the late colonial period under the Spanish Bourbon monarchs, the author places the starting point in the postcolonial city as the launch pad for a bourgeois renovation project. This period has received more interest from the historiography of cities than from continental points of view - with the notable exception of Jose Luis Romero's famous 1976 work, Latinoamerica - las ciudades y las ideas (Latin America, the Cities and the Ideas). Adhering to Romero's thesis, Almandoz highlights the role of the Creole bourgeoisie in the modernization process.