Biography

Leandro Losada is a specialist in the history of elites and of political thought in Spanish America. He holds a PhD in History from the National University of the Center of the Buenos Aires Province. He is a researcher for the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), and Associate Professor at the National University of San Martín, Argentina. He has received awards from the National Academy of History, the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires, and the Presidency of the Argentine Republic. His work has been published in academic journals in Spain, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, United States and Canada. Among his books, La alta sociedad en la Buenos Aires de la Belle Époque and Maquiavelo en la Argentina stand out.
 

Project Summary

The project explores the readings and the uses of Nicolò Machiavelli´s works in Spanish American political thinking during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. For that, it focuses in three historical moments: the ruptures of Colonial ties; the conformation of national states and the constitutional debates; and the period of heyday and crisis of liberalism. The corpus of literature and sources includes history writings, political essays, philosophical studies and conjuncture political debates. From the research objects and chronological choices mentioned above, the research will study the Spanish American liberalism and anti-liberalism in an Atlantic key, the transnational circulation of Machiavelli’s interpretations, and their impact in the delimitation and consolidation of academic disciplines (like political science and historiography). Finally, the project, by inquiring into the tensions among republicanism, liberalism, and democracy, will offer arguments based on historical knowledge to enrich the contemporary public debate on the quality, the present, and the future of democracy in Spanish America.