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"the archive […] will never be either memory or anamnesis as spontaneous,alive and internal experience. On the contrary: the archive takesplace at the place of originary and structural breakdown of said memory."1What the philosopher Jacques Derrida diagnoses about the archive, takingplace at the lieu of a structural breakdown of memory, is pertinent as well forthe complicit yet complicated relationship between history and photography. Itis this collapse that all articles of this Special Issue allude to when they examinephotography as history. Let me take this idea a little further and consider howarchives matter when it comes to discussing the images' "tension between factsand meanings" mediated on the level of memory and remembrance.2 I will arguethat the relationship between history and photography is defined by the archive asa place of consignation negotiated by the images that may nevertheless becomepowerful enough to articulate counter-semantics and alternative narratives ofcivil imaginations. As a sort of epilogue I wish to reveal this implicit politicalontological dimension of photography that is irreducibly tied to the archive.

It is no secret that images hold a special place in historiography. We speakof a complicit though complicated relationship between images and history, arelationship that has long been vital because images have always provided importantinsights into history and were accepted as equal to other written sourcematerials. This is certainly true for those historians who work on antiquity or theearly modern period, and the medievalists. Yet, with the chemical-technologicalinvention of photography in the 1830s this relationship seems to have experiencedserious frictions.

¿Pueden las imágenes incidir en la historia? ¿Son fieles evidencias del pasado? Esta compilación aparece frente al renovado interés de la disciplina histórica y las ciencias humanas, por interpretar las fuentes visuales como producciones intencionalmente elaboradas y difundidas tanto en momentos como en espacios particulares. Alejándose de la vista inocente y contemplativa, los autores del libro proponen desde sus contribuciones, situar la función social de las imágenes en el centro de sus análisis de caso, los cuales abarcan un amplio conjunto de procesos latinoamericanos ocurridos entre los siglos XIX y XXI en países como Chile, Brasil, Perú, Colombia y Argentina. De esta manera, cada capítulo invita al lector a "pensar visualmente" temas como la propaganda política, la construcción de la nación, el ensamblaje de identidades o de memorias colectivas, etc., partiendo del supuesto metodológico que sugiere rastrear las imágenes desde su producción hasta su recepción, donde adquieren múltiples sentidos en su respectivo presente, así como en su preservación actual. Imaginando América Latina se presenta entonces como una iniciativa abierta a diferentes perspectivas disciplinares no solo limitadas a la lectura del historiador. Los doce capítulos contenidos en este libro, buscarán reflexionar sobre la capacidad de la imagen para conectar realidades en escalas globales y locales, insistiendo en mostrar la doble relación entre una historicidad de lo visual y una visualidad de la historia. ; Can images influence history? Are they true evidence of the past? This compilation appears in the light of the renewed interest showed by the discipline of history and human sciences in interpreting visual sources as productions that were intentionally elaborated and disseminated in specific times and spaces. Moving away from an innocent and contemplative view, the authors of the book, through their contributions, propose to place the social function of images at the center of their case analyses, which cover a broad set of Latin American processes that took place between the 19th and the 21st centuries in countries such as Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Argentina. Thus, each chapter invites the reader to "visually think" about issues such as political propaganda, nation building, the assemblage of identities or collective memories, etc., based on the methodological assumption that suggests tracking images from their production to their reception, where they acquire multiple meanings in their respective presents, as well as in their current preservation status. Imagining Latin America is, then, an initiative open to different disciplinary perspectives that are not limited only to readings from historians. The twelve chapters included in this book seek to reflect on the capacity of the image to connect realities at global and local scales, insisting on demonstrating a double relationship between the historicity of the visual and the visuality of history.