[Jorge Orlando Melo, Historia mínima de Colombia. El high school de México-Turner. Bogotá, 2018. 330 p.]

review / María Gabriela Fajardo

This history of Colombia written by Jorge Orlando Melo stands out for its evident effort of political neutrality. The processes, continuities and historical ruptures of the nation are mentioned without revealing any partisan tendency subject . The author tries to remain impartial in narrating the events that have brought Colombia to where it is today. This makes the work of Melo - born in Medellin in 1942, historian at the National University of Colombia and presidential advisor for human rights in 1990 - especially suitable for readers without a special knowledge of Colombian history, as they can judge for themselves the evolution of the creation of a nation where the State was first. This is precisely the purpose of the collection of "minimal histories" commissioned from the high school of Mexico.

A large part of the book is devoted to the colonial period, thus highlighting the importance of the historical report in the process of training of the country and in its current changes. It is not, therefore, the usual linear route through political events, but rather focuses on the cultural evolution of that report forged early and developed in successive social dynamics.

On the other hand, the role of the regions is an element core topic in the training of the colonial society, whose bequest is an inefficient central power, in a country where there are laws that seem to be negotiable, the society is divided into different social strata, the land belongs to a few and there is a constant political polarization at the hands of clientelist governments.

This happens in a Colombia in which the role of geography has been a determining factor in the processes of development of the nation. Melo speaks of isolated areas of difficult access, of very diverse subject: "islands of prosperity, security or healthiness in the middle of an ocean of poverty, violence and disease". That ocean has diminished today, but there are islands that continue to be the perfect route for drug trafficking.

The ideological struggles in Colombia have been intense: the Conservative Hegemony, of 32 years, was followed by the Liberal Hegemony, of 13; then came the era of the National Front, during which Conservatives and Liberals alternated in each period, creating an atmosphere of equilibrium and relative tranquility for a short deadline period of time. "The struggle between liberals and conservatives was, more than a political confrontation for electoral triumph, a holy war for different social models," writes Melo. However, this generated political exclusion and led to the training of groups outside the law, raised against the government and financed by drug trafficking. The confrontation made the institutional weaknesses visible and left little room for justice. Violence then became routine and ended up being Colombia's greatest historical failure, with special responsibility of those who promoted violence as an effective tool for social change. 

For Melo, it is "human agency"-that is, the way in which people use their resources to adapt to circumstances-that defines history; it is men and women who, in their joint action, generate change and are the builders of their history. Unlike the most common position on Colombian history, Melo does not fall into determinism: he does not make reference letter to a culture of innate violence that naturally condemns Colombians to fight each other. On the contrary, he makes it clear that events such as April 6, Rojas Pinilla's coup d'état in 1953 or the bloody seizure of the Palace of Justice in 1985, must be seen in perspective and considered as moments of a social process. 

The Colombian state did not achieve nationhood properly until the end of the 20th century, when the "dream of the creators of the nation" of having the whole territory covered by law, a single market and a political system was achieved. Colombia's unique history began with the Patria Boba, as the stage between the cry for independence and the battle of Boyacá, when the Creoles effectively achieved independence, is usually called. Since then there was a great lack of unity, manifested in an endless number of revolutions, reforms and constitutions. Colombia underwent an exhausting, exhausting and at the same time violent process aimed at achieving political, legal, economic and cultural cohesion throughout this extremely diverse country, with a geography that segmented it into regions, with varied and dispersed human groups.

But this past does not prejudge the future. The reader arrives at the end of this "Minimal History of Colombia" with the awareness of an open future for the great South American country. Colombia, once one of the most violent countries, now has a Nobel Peace Prize winner, is in a post-conflict process and has begun to be taken into account to a greater extent by the international community for its great progress.