Carlos Forment "Democracy in Latin America: Civic Selfhood and Public Life in Peru and Mexico" April 18, 2005

Carlos Forment speaking in the CLAS Conference Room on April 18.

Carlos Forment
"Democracy in Latin America: Civic Selfhood and Public Life in Peru and Mexico"

Carlos Forment will discuss his recent two-volume book, Democracy in Latin America, 1760-1900: Civic Selfhood and Public Life (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), a highly ambitious work that seeks to create the book Tocqueville would have written had he traveled to Latin America instead of the United States. Forment studied countless newspapers, partisan pamphlets, tabloids, journals, private letters and travelogues in order to illustrate how citizens of Latin America established strong democratic traditions in their countries through the practice of democracy in their everyday lives.

Carlos A. Forment is the director of the Centro de Investigación y Documentación de la Vida Pública in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Previously, he was a member of the School for Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Dr. Forment is now studying the emergence of democratic practices in contemporary Argentina.

Carlos Forment talking with an audience member after his presentation.