The intelligentsia's two visions of urban modernity: Gómez's Caracas, 1908–35

Abstract

This article focuses on the disparity between two urban reports of the Gómez regime (1908–35). Relying on the theoretical platform provided by European positivism, there is, on the one hand, the erudite ideologists' justification of the material achievements of the dictatorship. On the other hand, there is the critique present in the literary characters of the works written by the young political class, where the parochialism of Caracas served as an excuse to attack the social abuses and cultural obscurity of one of Latin America's longest dictatorships.