Honorable Lives

Victor Uribe-Uran has written an important book about Colombia in the middle period. On one level it provides an understanding of lawyers, their education, and careers in the late colonial and early republican periods (1780-1850). More broadly, it offers a challenging interpretation of Colombian politics that explains political patterns in the early republican period in terms of family status inherited from the late colonial years. While I do not completely agree with every aspect of the interpretation, I have learned much from Uribe's study. It offers a construction of history that everyone interested in Spanish America in the middle period will profit from reading and pondering.

Colombian specialists, regardless of their discipline, will find much to ponder in this reinterpretation of Colombian history, but because Uribe-Uran has placed his data in a comparative framework, professors and graduate students who study the colonial and postcolonial history of other Latin American countries will benefit as well. A monumental book!

In this work Uribe-Uran looks at familiar data in new ways as well as uncovering much fascinating new data and tying them all together in a refreshingly original interpretation. We have here a major addition to the literature on Colombian history—and specialists in other Latin American nations can profit from reading it too.

This admirable study of Colombian lawyers and their institutions in the late-colonial and early-republican periods challenges the notion that the chaotic hisory of the period was completely dominated by rogue caudillos engaged in an endless struggle for power. . . . [I]t adds greatly to our understanding of the role of lawyers in the important transitional events between colony and independence.

Essential reading for anyone interested in what Uribe-Uran defines as a distinct period, 1780-1850, in Spanish-American history.

Victor Uribe-Uran has penned an important book that crosses the "Independence divide," an oft-recommended passage, but one that few scholars are bold enough to take...By focusing upon the social, regional, and political activities of this citical social section, Uribe-Uran makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Colombia's early national political clutue and the importance of lawyers throughout Latin America...a gold mine of genealogical and familial information.

" . . . offers a fresh perspective on Colombia's transition from colony to republic. . . . It makes an important congribution to the historiography of early republican Colombia, and, with its stress on urban centers and civil society, it offers a healthy counterweight to interpretations that have emphasized the law of force rather than the force of law. It thus enriches our general understanding of the processes of independence and stabe building and will be welcomed by all those interested in the social and political history of Latin America during this period.