Simon Collier

In the first biography in English of the great Argentinian tango singer Carlos Gardel (1890-1935), Collier traces his rise from very modest beginnings to become the first genuine “superstar” of twenti

This book covers the years from the breakdown of the Spanish Empire in America to the stabilisation of the new republic of Chile. It is a survey of the political ideas and the interplay of ideas and political action during the independence period. Whilst examining the influences making for change in late colonial Chile and the implications of political experiment and instability, much of the text is devoted to a description of the common ideology of the revolution. The author considers that the political theory was based on the notions of the social contract, the sovereignty of the people, representative government, the division of powers and a system of natural rights. It was derived from the liberal thought of the enlightenment and from the doctrines of the North American and French revolutions. But it was a complex of vaguer emotions and attitudes such as utopianism, anti-Spanish feeling, the 'black legend', an incipient nationalism and the idealisation of the Araucanian Indian whic

Chile enjoyed unique prestige among the Spanish American republics of the nineteenth century for its stable and increasingly liberal political tradition. How did this unusual story unfold? The tradition was forged in serious and occasionally violent conflicts between the dominant Conservative Party, which governed in an often authoritarian manner from 1830 to 1858, and the growing forces of political Liberalism. A major political realignment in 1857–8 paved the way for comprehensive liberalization. This book examines the formative period of the republic's history and combines an analysis of the ideas and assumptions of the Chilean political class with a narrative of the political process from the consolidation of the Conservative regime in the 1830s, to the beginnings of liberalization in the early 1860s. The book is based on a comprehensive survey of the writings and speeches of politicians and the often rumbustious Chilean press of the period.

Simon Collier examines the formative period of the Chilean republic's history. He combines an analysis of the ideas and assumptions of the Chilean political class with a narrative of the political pro

Providing an overview of Chilean history for the general reader as well as the specialist, this text employs primary and secondary materials to analyze the nation's political, economic, and social evo

Born in the slums of Buenos Aires in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the tango--the most erotic, most passionate, most melancholy of dances--has remained spectacularly alive for more than

Providing an overview of Chilean history for the general reader as well as the specialist, this text employs primary and secondary materials to analyze the nation's political, economic, and social evo