Building the Nation While Destroying the Land: Paraguayan Journalism during the Triple Alliance War, 1864–1870

Paraguayan resistance against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay during the 1864-1870 Paraguayan War was bolstered by efforts that appealed to the patriot­ism of Guaraní-speaking soldiers and citizens. This required a new textual approach that expressed itself in journalism devoted to the common man. The articles, woodcut images, and folkloric propaganda of the Paraguayan newspa­pers during these years constitute an unusual and perhaps unique chapter in the evolution of a specifically Latin American form of nationalism - a nationalism that was all the more tragic for being stillborn.