This article is inspired on E. Bradford Burns' study about the Salvadorean "intellectual infrastructure" published in 1985. I argue that such "intellectual infrastructure" was more limited than Burns believed at first. This conclusion is based on a systematic comparison of the Salvadorean printed culture with the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican one, considering also the levels of popular literacy, the role played by the intellectual circles, the cultural policies developed by the state in such countries, and the different processes of the "invention" of nation. * La investigación que sirvió de base para este artículo se efectuó en el Centro de Investigación en Identidad y Cultura Latinoamericanas (CIICLA) y fue financiada por la