The Temporality Regimen in Mexican Historiography in the 19th Century

Abstract

The relationship that historians establish with time is a fundamental issue. This paper explores the way in which ideas about past, present and future articulate in the development of historiography in 19th-century Mexico. For that purpose, the paper explores the usefulness of Reinhart Koselleck’s metahistorical concepts of space of experience and horizon of expectations, as well as François Hartog’s notion of historicity regime. The example for this exploration is the Historia de México, by Lucas Alamán, which represents the moment in which historiography enters a different temporal order, i. e. a new “temporality regime”. By the historical time in which Alamán writes, engendered by the tension between the space of experience—the colonial past— and the horizon of expectations— the building of a new nation—, the 19th-century society experiences its relationship with time in a different way, which will have repercussions on the way history is written.

Keywords

• Historiografía mexicana, espacio de experiencia, horizonte de expectativa, régimen de historicidad, Lucas Alamán