Mariano Moreno, the Social Contract and the print market in the beginning of Independent America

Abstract

In a colonial world that came close to its end, halfway between the Ancien Régime y what would come after, Mariano Moreno wrote his work at the same time that was a protagonist of the political events that shake Buenos Aires in 1810. Using this character as a gateway to the eighteen Century Rí­o de La Plata, we try to reconstruct the ideas and language of the times. A point of special attention is the print culture, with which Moreno had an active relationship, founding and directing the first official bulletin and editing a version of Rousseau ´s Social Contract. The question that drives this text is as follows: How «modern » were Moreno and the world he lived in?