Individuality and America. The influence of Friederich Meinecke in Antonello Gerbi’s Latin American studies

Abstract

This essay aims to present a new reading of some passages of Antonello Gerbi’s seminal work The dispute of the New World. History of a polemic, 1750–1900, to highlight the critical his-toricist influences underpinning Gerbi’s text. The study takes the form of a comparison of the writings of Antonello Gerbi and Friedrich Meinecke, one of the leading exponents of the philosophical current in question, selecting passages from Meinecke’s last book where their “cultural proximity” is more explicit and striking.