Del Mundo Contemporaneo 1 Bachillerato | Libro Historia

She looks at the final page of her project. She was going to write a boring conclusion. Instead, she writes: “The 19th century was not a parade of dates and treaties. It was the sound of Joaquín’s hands bleeding on a loom. It was the smell of gunpowder on a Parisian barricade. It was the silence between two brothers who loved the same country differently. The world we live in today—our democracies, our labor rights, our national borders, our social conflicts—was forged in their struggle. The forgotten man in the photograph is not forgotten anymore.”

“This is the year,” Joaquín says, his eyes bright. “First Sicily, then Paris, then Vienna, then Berlin. The Primavera de los Pueblos ! The old order of Metternich and absolute kings is finished. We will have the República Democrática y Social .”

Sofía feels a strange pull. She closes her eyes, and the archive melts away. Libro Historia Del Mundo Contemporaneo 1 Bachillerato

Sofía knows from her textbook how this ends. She tries to warn him. But the cannons of General Cavaignac roar. The barricade falls. Joaquín is not killed, but he is captured. As he is dragged away, he shouts to Sofía: “Tell them we almost made it! Tell them the dream didn’t die, it just went underground!”

Years later. Sofía finds Joaquín again, now a graying exile in the office of a newspaper in Turin. It is 1859. He is writing articles supporting Il Risorgimento —the unification of Italy. He has two young sons: Matteo (idealistic, believes in Garibaldi and the Camisas Rojas ) and Carlo (pragmatic, admires Cavour and the cunning of the Realpolitik ). She looks at the final page of her project

Sofía watches as Joaquín joins a secret sindicato . She sees the fear in his eyes when the Ley de Chapman (a reference to anti-union laws) sends his friend to a penal colony in Australia. But she also sees his hope when he reads a smuggled pamphlet by Marx and Engels: “¡Proletarios del mundo, uníos!”

The brothers argue. Matteo wants a republic of the people. Carlo argues that only a monarchy under Victor Emmanuel II can defeat Austria. It was the sound of Joaquín’s hands bleeding on a loom

She is standing in the rain, next to Joaquín. The air smells of coal smoke and human sweat. He is a hilador in a textile mill. He tells her his story: He left his village in Andalusia after the Ley de Mendizábal (confiscation of church and communal lands) forced his family off their common land. Now he works 14 hours a day. He shows her his raw, bleeding hands.