Francisco Bulnes y sus crónicas de viaje por el Extremo Oriente: liberalismo, positivismo y escepticismo

Abstract

Mexican intellectual Francisco Bulnes is one of the most outstanding members of the so-called group of scientists during the Porfiriato. He forms part of the Mexican Astronomical Commission to Japan in 1874 as an official writer. In addition, Bulnes published in 1875 a personal and well-documented account of the scientific expedition in Japan and the vicissitudes of the journey through the East: On the Northern Hemisphere, Eleven Thousand Leagues. Travel impressions to Cuba, United States, Japan, China, Cochinchina, Egypt and Europe. This paper studies the details of this exceptional chronicle of a renowned Hispanic American intellectual, chronicle that with a rich cultural baggage expresses his own vision of the world, his country and East Asia. The positivist liberalism of Bulnes’s contrasts with his skeptical worldview.