Historias que cuentan y cuentos que historian en "Tiempos de (in)certidumbre"

Abstract

The so-called "linguistic turn" in the discipline of History has but shown what has always been the case: that the historical writing is literary inasmuch as it is narrative and discursive, and that the Li-terature is historical inasmuch as it registers and produces the past. But this should not imply, as it has in the case of some postmodern enthusiasts, the end of historical evaluation concerning the subjects whose history one seeks to tell. The fundamental questions for all kinds of recreation of the past should always be: Which proposal benefits the dispossessed? Which vindicates the sufferings of our history? Whom does each discursive inquisition serve? The diffe-rent versions of the mutiny against Esquilache (1766), an event of singular importance in Spanish history, serves as the starting point.