This article is a tribute to the economist Albert O. Hirschman and their contributions to historical thinking in Colombia, in particular, having a broad impact analysis on the role of rhetoric in political economy. Hirschman distinguished clearly enough the official discourse of power and reaction components in the public debate. Since independence, the revolutionary demonstrations were accompanied by a jealous care of the spoken language, grammar and power. So the recent celebration of two hundred years of independence is really like Hirschman says Two hundred years of reactionary rhetoric. What implications does the model proposed by Hirschman in terms of historiography, political economy and social science analysis today? Our goal is to propose a re-reading this question and others-in terms of the hypotheses proposed by Hirschman.
