Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
The 1891 civil war that led to the downfall of President José Manuel Balmaceda is without doubt one of the most visible episodes of Chilean history. Already the subject of a voluminous bibliography by 1894 (Echeverría y Reyes, 1894), the “revolution's” importance to historians of Chile actually increased over time as a new generation of scholars came to view it not merely as a discrete event of limited intrinsic interest but as an important key to understanding Chile's subsequent political and economic development. In retrospect, the conflict came to be seen as a “crucial watershed” in Chilean history (Blakemore, 1974: 243), marking the replacement of a presidential system—1833-1891—notable in nineteenth-century Latin America for political stability, by a parliamentary system—1891-1924—notorious for political and monetary disorder.