Bulnes Pinto, Gonzalo (1851–1936)

The Chilean historian Gonzalo Bulnes Pinto, son of President Manuel Bulnes Prieto (1841–1851), was educated at the Padres Franceses school and at the Instituto Nacional in Santiago, continuing his education in Europe between 1871 and 1874. Back in Chile, he established his reputation as a historian with his Historia de la campaña del Perú en 1838 (1878), a book that did much to advance a Chilean sense of national identity. As did other historians of the period, Bulnes combined politics and scholarship, first becoming a congressman in 1882, then Intendant of Tarapacá Province in 1883, senator in 1912, and Chilean ambasador to Germany, Italy, and Argentina from the 1890s to the 1920s. He sided with Congressional forces against President José Manuel Balmaceda in 1891, and was an opponent of President Arturo Alessandri in the 1920s. Although active as a politician and diplomat, it is his work as a historian that endures. In addition to monographs on the independence period, his best known and in some respects still unsurpassed work is La Guerra del Pacífico (three volumes, 1911–1919), a massively researched book on the War of the Pacific (1879–1883) that creatively combined the use of traditional primary sources with innovative oral history. This highly readable book generated much criticism from military historians for asserting that Chilean victory was due to civilian leadership. Toward the end of his life Bulnes returned to the themes of independence with his Nacimiento de las repúblicas americanas (Birth of the American Republics, 1927), and his unfinished study of José Miguel Carrera.

See alsoAlessandri Palma, Arturo; Balmaceda Fernández, José Manuel; Bulnes Prieto, Manuel; Carrera, José Miguel; Chile, Revolutions: Revolution of 1891; Chile: The Nineteenth Century; War of the Pacific.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bulnes Pinto, Gonzalo. Historia de la campaña del Perú en 1838. Santiago de Chile: Los Tiempos, 1878.

Bulnes Pinto, Gonzalo. Nacimiento de las repúblicas americanas. Buenos Aires: J. Roldán, 1927.

Bulnes Pinto, Gonzalo. La guerra del Pacifico. 3 vols., 4th ed. Santiago de Chile: Editorial del Pacifico, 1979.

Gazmuri R., Cristián. La historiografia chilena, 1842–1970. Santiago de Chile: Taurus, 2006.

Ossa Santa Cruz, Juan Luis. "Gonzalo Bulnes y su Historia de la campaña del Perú en 1838." Seminario Simon Collier, Santiago: Instituto de Historia, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (2005): 195-222.

                                                Ivan Jaksic