The Decline and Fall of Hemispheric Specialization

The Decline and Fall of Hemispheric Specialization book cover

The Decline and Fall of Hemispheric Specialization

Author(s): Robert Efron (Author)

  • Publisher: Psychology Press
  • Publication Date: October 11, 2025
  • Language: English
  • Print length: 257 pages
  • ISBN-10: 3032043867
  • ISBN-13: 9783032043863

Book Description

This monograph explores how Chilean urban workers translated nineteenth-century European political philosophy according to their conditions, locality, and colonial history. The research is grounded on a systematic analysis of local archival material—primarily, newspapers aimed at the working class from 1870 to the 1920s—from a theoretical perspective informed by contemporary feminist critiques and inspired by Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction. This provides a new understanding of late-nineteenth-century Chilean popular culture which shows that the origin of capitalism was commonly interpreted as a loss of virility on the part of Chilean men, who emerged into a modern European like city as degenerative people dispossessed of their traditional “dominion” over Chilean women, land, and culture. The book proposes that the experience of early industrial modernity was posited by Chilean men as equivalent to the loss of an essential masculinity rooted in an economy of patriarchal sexual difference. Consequently, it also reveals that the notion of “revolution” was translated in Chilean culture as the return of an ideal male subject who would re-establish the “natural” distribution of the sexes displaced by a foreign form of capitalist modernity. This research shows the centrality of questions of gender to working-class political thought and criticizes the points of complicity between politics, philosophy, and patriarchy in the Chilean political tradition. It will appeal to students and researchers in political theory, gender studies, feminism, and Latin American studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a brilliant book about the way working-class men configure themselves in print, not only in relation to capitalism but in relation to women. Montalva Armanet combines deep archival labour with rigorous theory to probe the sexual as much as material and intellectual conditions of production of the Chilean working-class press. It is ground-breaking work which challenges the commonplaces of labour history.” (Professor Adam Sharman, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom)

“Montalva’s sharp analysis shows us the construction, and attempts to disrupt, the gender order through the Chilean labour press of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A necessary read to rethink the terms of the ‘unhappy marriage’ between the left and feminism.” (Nicole Darat, Assistant Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Chile)

“An important and unique analysis of working-class press written by Chilean men and women during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Through a focus on the representation of gender, masculinities and sexualities and the use of feminist theory, Joaquin Montalva has opened up a new and thoughtful area of study for Chilean and Latin American History.” (Hillary Hiner, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Gender Studies M.A. Program in Social Sciences, University of Chile)

“This is a fascinating book by a brilliant young scholar—as subtle with his deployment of Derridean theory as he is solid with his research into working-class periodicals. He brings together sophisticated gender analysis with important social history.” (Judith Still, Vice-President (Humanities) of the British Academy, Emeritus Professor, University of Nottingham)

From the Back Cover

“This is a brilliant book about the way working-class men configure themselves in print, not only in relation to capitalism but in relation to women. It is ground-breaking work which challenges the commonplaces of labour history.”
Adan Sharman, Associate Professor, University of Nottingham, UK

“A necessary read to rethink the terms of the ‘unhappy marriage’ between the left and feminism.”
Nicole Darat, Assistant Professor, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Chile

“An important and unique analysis of working-class press written by Chilean men and women. Montalva has opened up a new area of study for Chilean and Latin American History.”
Hillary Hiner, Associate Professor, University of Chile

“This is a fascinating book by a brilliant young scholar. He brings together sophisticated gender analysis with important social history.”
Judith Still, Vice-President (Humanities) of the British Academy

This monograph explores how Chilean urban workers translated European political philosophy according to their conditions, locality, and colonial history. The research is grounded on a systematic analysis of local archival material—primarily, working-class periodicals— from a theoretical perspective informed by contemporary feminist critiques and Derrida’s deconstruction. It provides a new understanding of late-nineteenth-century Chilean popular culture which shows that the origin of capitalism was commonly interpreted as a loss of virility on the part of Chilean men, who emerged into a modern European like city as degenerative people dispossessed of their traditional “dominion” over Chilean women, land, and culture. This research shows the centrality of questions of gender to working-class political thought and criticizes the points of complicity between politics and patriarchy in the Chilean political tradition. It will appeal to students and researchers in political theory, gender studies, feminism, and Latin American studies.

Joaquín Montalva Armanet received a PhD in Critical Theory at the University of Nottingham and is currently a lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the Catholic University of Temuco, Chile. His transdisciplinary research focuses on Chilean late-nineteenth century and early-twenty century popular press, Latin American Philosophy and contemporary French Philosophy, particularly the work of Jacques Derrida.

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