Conquest to Modernity (1510–1910)

Abstract

This chapter further develops the insights that can be gained from a flexible development of Antonio Gramsci’s thinking from a contemporary Latin American perspective. The first section, “Passive Revolution,” focuses on the rich conceptual armory Gramsci developed to explain uneven development and conservative modernization in the Italy of his time. An overarching theme is the continuous struggle by the dominant classes to achieve hegemony, that is, a form of rule where coercion is matched or balanced by consent. Gramsci’s way of working conceptually and concretely at the same time will be our own methodological guide in subsequent sections. The second section, “Conquest,” is a rapid sketch of the brutal Iberian destruction of the Amerindian civilizations and the introduction of a mercantile model of production with a mixture of free and servile relations of production. The pre-Columbian world was totally transformed by this rapacious and exploitative regime, but it did create the social forces that would push for independence. After three centuries, the Spanish-American (criollo) elite sought to gain “Independence” from Spain so as not to be constrained in terms of trading relations. From the 1810-1820 struggle for independence—with indigenous and other subaltern groups restless in the background—the current republics of Latin America were formed (with the exception of Brazil) through a process of passive revolution.