The greatest irony—and central strength—of this book lies in its title: These Histories of Solitude emerged from deep collaboration, workshop dialogue, and collective scholarship by dozens of scholars from multiple countries and regions. They are also histories that are best told together. Closely linked to the companion Histories of Perplexity: Colombia, 1970s–2010s and Colombian initiatives such as Historias de lo político: Ilusiones nacionales y disputas por el orden, the book addresses long-standing questions about democracy, violence, and belonging through a wide range of perspectives and methods.
The result is a highly original re-examination of how inclusion, exclusion, and violence have been produced and resisted in Colombia, as well as a demonstration that collaborative scholarship can unsettle entrenched national narratives. Key interventions include reconceptualizing “solitude” as a productive historical category, broadening the archival and methodological toolkit, experimenting with alternative spatial and temporal scales, and insisting on democracy’s contingent and unpredictable nature. Equally important, it challenges exceptionalist readings of Colombian history while countering the hyper-individualist ethos of contemporary—especially US-based—neoliberal academic practice.
For transparency, I was among the Colombian “Colombianistas” invited to participate but was prevented by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. I was excited for the published volume, and my high expectations were fully met by the results.
The first part, “Imagining a Republic,” (27–94) reconsiders post-independence nation-building through multiscalar analysis. James Sanders uses regional archives to recover popular republicanism, Nancy Appelbaum examines how elites cartographically constructed “regions” to consolidate hierarchy, and Franz Hensel-Riveros situates Colombia in hemispheric debates between Latin and Anglo America. Together, they reject linear state-formation narratives, highlighting contestation, belonging, scientific thinking, and questions of scale.
The second section, “Building a Public Sphere,” (97–162) widens both the evidentiary base and the social actors considered. Drawing on legal, educational, commercial, visual, and periodical materials, its chapters portray a contested arena shaped not only by elites but by Indigenous negotiation, emergent civic habits, and popular consumer culture. These innovative methodological approaches illuminate the complexity of Colombia’s overlapping and competing public spheres.
A shift emerges in the later sections: While nineteenth-century solitude reflected tensions around defining republican citizenship and grappling with regional divides, twentieth-century solitude arose from modernization projects promising integration while producing new forms of marginalization—albeit alongside opportunities for solidarity and inclusion.
Section 3, “Crafting Citizenship,” (165–225) traces the intersections of regulation, cultural politics, and citizenship in the early twentieth century. Juan Fernando Velásquez connects “sound hygiene” campaigns to the racialized policing of plebeian life—especially Black Colombians—in urban settings. Catalina Muñoz-Rojas, rather than evaluating the Liberal Party’s success (1930–46), examines how its cultural policies broadened the scope of citizenship and cultural rights as core to national belonging. Francisco Javier Flórez Bolívar, George Palacios, and Ana Milena Rhenals Doria demonstrate how circulating ideas of mestizaje and la raza cósmica fueled Colombian Black cultural practice and intellectual work on the national stage. Collectively, these chapters position “cultural citizenship” as a contested field whose promotion and regulation expanded inclusion even as it generated new exclusions.
The fourth section, “Inventing Development,” (229–308) examines agricultural, educational, and economic modernization in twentieth-century rural Colombia, interrogating the interplay between state-led initiatives, local agency, and global models of progress. Using sources from credit records and agricultural reports to educational materials, government archives, and economic correspondence, the chapters contrast state-directed social engineering with local adaptation and resistance. They also trace the influence of technocrats, planners, and politicians to demonstrate the negotiated and contingent nature of development. Colombia’s rural transformation thereby becomes relevant for broader debates on modernization, citizenship, and the limits of state-led growth.
The final section, “Subverting Orders,” (312–396) addresses violence and peace-building in Colombia through analyses of La Violencia, the Frente Nacional, grassroots community action in marginalized urban areas near Cartagena, and human rights activism. These chapters foreground the resilience, creativity, and agency of communities enduring structural violence, showing that civic transformation often arises less from official accords than from sustained local initiatives, negotiation, and rights-based struggle. Violence here is not an episodic rupture but is embedded in daily life—prompting extraordinary and varied responses.
Ultimately, Histories of Solitude illuminates the fragile, unfinished nature of democracy by taking Colombia as a compelling case in point. The volume’s breadth of voices, innovative chapters, and a carefully curated bibliography that balances foundational works with cutting-edge scholarship are its greatest strengths. As such, the book will foster richer, more inclusive and methodologically innovative histories, and it will prove essential reading for scholars of democracy, Colombia, Latin American history, and global history, as well as for anyone interested in the transformative potential of collective research.
