Orden del tiempo y escritura de la historia: consideraciones sobre el ensayo histórico en el Brasil, 1870-1940

Abstract

This article is intended to analyze the relationships between the writing of history practiced in Brazil between 1870 and 1940, with the experience of time as perceived and represented by a significant number of scholars who acted in such a context. Establishing the focus of the analysis on the historical essay, it is argued in the sense that this kind of essay was a privileged discursive modality for dealing with the problems of temporal order that featured that historical moment, characterized by a deep questioning about the paths taken by the Brazilian republic, by a distortion of the ideal of progress that defined, since the nineteenth century, the features of the modern concept of history, and, finally, by a desire to renew interpretations focused on the formation process of the nation.