The present volume analyses the actual processes by which liberal ideas and modern educational and cultural projects traveled to, and were institutionalized in, the Latin American context during the post-independence period. It comprises a number of essays that pay attention to the process of importing specific ideas to particular contexts, and to the peculiar dynamics of that communication. Although diverse in theme and methodological approach, all of the studies that make up this volume focus on the typical features characterizing the selection, appropriation and utilization of imported political discourses and institutions, models of schooling and cultural practices. Each of the contributors follows the circulation and appropriation of specific European «ideas» and «models», and discusses the social and cultural characteristics of the process of communication that shaped that circulation.

The Editors: The editors are research and teaching staff at Humboldt University, Berlin. Eugenia Roldán Vera is a Senior Researcher in the Interdisciplinary Research Network on «Changing representations of social order» (SFB 640). Marcelo Caruso is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Education at Humboldt University’s Comparative Education Centre.