Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative

National Territory, National Literature

Aarti Smith Madan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9783319551395
• eBook ISBN: 9783319551401
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This book looks to the writings of prolific statesmen like D.F. Sarmiento, Estanislao Zeballos, and Euclides da Cunha to unearth the literary and political roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. Tracing the simultaneous rise of text-writing, map-making, and institution-building, it offers new insight into how nations consolidated their territories. Beginning with the titanic figures of Strabo and Humboldt, it rereads foundational works like Facundo and Os sertões as examples of a recognizably geographical discourse. The book digs into lesser-studied bulletins, correspondence, and essays to tell the story of how three statesmen became literary stars while spearheading Latin America's first geographic institutes, which sought to delineate the newly independent states. Through a fresh pairing of literary analysis and institutional history, it reveals that words and maps—literature and geography—marched in lockstep to shape national territories, identities, and narratives.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Chapter 1 Heretofore: Delineation
• Chapter 2 Geographical Discourse and Alexander Von Humboldt
• Chapter 3 Sarmiento the Geographer: Unearthing the Literary in Facundo
• Chapter 4 Estanislao Severos Zeballos and the Transatlantic Science of Statecraft
• Chapter 5 Euclides da Cunha’s Literary Map, or Including Os Sertões
• Chapter 6 Hereafter: Off the Grid
• Bibliography
• Index