This is an ambitious book. Author Christopher Conway sets as his goal the exploration of ‘the cultural forms that encapsulated the world views, lifestyles, and ideologies of Spanish American elites and commoners in the nineteenth century’ (p. 2). It is intended as an overview for students and educated general readers and therefore Conway has consciously de-emphasised academic and theoretical debates in the text itself in favour of directing interested persons to additional sources in a bibliographic section at the end. The book is eminently readable and peppered with engaging anecdotes and examples of the thoughts and activities of nineteenth-century folk, both famous and forgotten. Conway takes an expansive view of what constitutes culture, ranging from urban design, theatre, blood sports, newspapers and music to literature and other print media. His argument, while not particularly novel, asserts that ‘nineteenth-century Spanish American culture was forged through the opposition and intertwining of tradition and modernity’ (p. 3). This observation foregrounds the concept of modernity as a central concern of both the subjects themselves and Conway as the author.

The book is divided into five chapters with single-word titles, bracketed by an introduction called ‘Cultures’ and an afterword that frames culture as ‘Change’. Chapter 1 elaborates the reality of ‘Cities’, which Conway sees as the ‘staging ground for implementing new ideas in places still conditioned by traditional ideas and practices’ (p. 23). Chapter 2 is devoted to ‘Print’, a cultural artefact that contained ‘the kind of faith in the civilizing power of the word [which] was a fundamental cornerstone of nineteenth-century’ intellectual life (p. 54). Chapter 3 treats ‘Theatricality’, which is something quite different from the theatre itself, namely public entertainment and acts that are performative and spectacular and intended to shape morals and behaviour while creating community. Chapter 4 is titled simply ‘Image’ and reminds readers that ‘the creation and dissemination of pictures reflected contrasting attitudes, expectations and cultural practices tied to class difference’ (p. 133). Finally, Chapter 5 is a wide-ranging summary of ‘Musicality’ intended to show the way in which music was viewed as a civilising force affecting ‘identities determined by social class and regionalism’, and that it was an important vehicle for transculturation (p. 169). In the afterword, Conway sums up his argument by reiterating that ‘there are historically legitimate reasons for generalising about nineteenth-century Spanish American culture’ and that this cultural experience was based on the ‘mixing of a variety of ethnic, national and regional experiences’ (p. 199).

Conway's analysis is grounded in the same basic assumptions of linearity that characterised the nineteenth century itself. He describes cultural forms as being arranged on a ‘shared continuum’ (p. 4) and notes that much of the culture's content – particularly that of elite-sponsored artefacts – is concerned with progress and improvement. The book is strongest when it talks about literary subjects; there is an extensive discussion of the hemispheric popularity of Jorge Isaacs’ novel María that convincingly shows how the printed word established a sense of shared experience and purpose among lettered folk across the hemisphere. Conway also does a good job of explaining the interplay between elite and popular culture through contrasting examples such as a discussion of a formal art gallery in Caracas and the woodcuts of Mexican José Guadalupe Posada. He also shows how certain cultural artefacts spread through mobile elements like the military; in one clearly traceable example, Chile's national dance, the cueca, was brought back to that country from Lima by soldiers in musical battalions associated with the armies of independence. The book is helpful for students of the nineteenth century because it gathers together many ephemeral, yet meaningful, elements of day-to-day life that can easily be overlooked when historical study is reduced merely to a roll call of political events.

Because the book treats such a huge and far-ranging subject – the cultural history of all of Latin America over an entire century – it is both easy and difficult to criticise. On the one hand, Conway very clearly notes that he has identified the impetus to modernity as the cornerstone of cultural activity and thus has chosen to concentrate his discussion on scenes from the capital cities of México DF, Lima, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and Santiago de Chile. And, because this book is explicitly conceived as a general overview, it would be unfair to expect it to encompass all manner of cultural forms experienced across race, class, ethnic group, region and educational level both within and across countries. Conway's wide-ranging account does an excellent job of familiarising readers with major elements of Latin American urban culture, especially those associated with literature and the print medium. On the other hand, this same organising principle has meant that the voices, values and experiences of women, rural folk and persons of colour are seriously underrepresented. Conway does include women in some of his examples (Afro-descended bullfighters in Peru, the tertulias of Juana Manuela Gorriti, a prostitute, writers Fanny Calderón de la Barca and Clorinda Matto de Turner etc.), but one wonders if the expansion of culture to include things like textiles, clothing, food and domesticity might have resulted in a stronger role for women's cultural contributions. Similar critiques could be made for the relative sidelining of indigenous and Afro-descended culture, which probably had its geographical heart outside the capital cities and surely focused more on resistance and preservation of its own autonomy than on the modernisation and convergence that Conway has taken as his central narrative principle. Writing a book such as this one is an ambitious task that will satisfy no one entirely, but Conway's effort has certainly resulted in an entertaining, intelligent volume that will be useful starting point for scholars in many fields. It is likely to find an audience among general readers as well. The book is an impressive achievement.