Memory, Words and Actions: Homeland History, Knowledge for Awakening Feelings

Abstract

The article we propose attempts to explore the relationship between history and rhetoric in a particular textual form: the so-called homeland history, whose origins can be explored in Colombia from 1850 on the Compendium of the history of New Granada by Jose Antonio Plaza, on the Republican Catechism by Cerbeleon Pinzon and later, in the books written by Jose Joaquin Borda (History of Colombia told for children) and Jose Maria Quijano Otero (Compendium of Homeland History). We want to note that homeland history is not exactly the same as national history, its nature as a digest or summary defines not only some specific practices of historical writing, but it also shows it attachment to the literary genres established by rhetoric; and its “orality” defines the potential of its books and their contents, more in relation to memory than to the limits of an objective and thoughtful knowledge.