A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century

While respecting the other reviews here of this book, I think it is simply indispensible to any serious underdstanding of Argentina's past and present condition. For me, the twin bases of Argentine history are 1) The long, confusing, tormented and incomplete time between 16th century colonization and the emergence of an oligarchic semi-modern state in the early years of the 20th century, and 2) The long and often massive influx since the mid-1800s of Western Europeans who were certainly running from various kinds of chaos in their homelands but not running to embrace Argentina; many, indeed came only because they could not go to the US. Indeed, many immigrants had no interest in becoming citizens, nor in voting, and some returned after crises in their home countries eased. The vastly imperfect form of representative democracy that emerged in early Argentine history was in fact just a continuation of the rule of powerful and conflicted oligarchs, and the issues of centralized vs. decentralized government is still a part of the political culture. The outsized dominance in size, money, people and sheer power of the Buenos Aires Province is still the dominant reality of the nation. The capital, with only three million people, is far less influential than might be imagined, and its voters elect candidates so vastly different from those in the rest of Argentina that they might as well be from a different planet. From my reading of Romero, I am put in mind of that rather Zen-like phrase, "a clear picture of a fuzzy thing is still fuzzy." This, to me, is the best picture one can hope to have of this remarkable country at this point in time -- early in the 21st century. There remain so many fundamentally unresolved issues that the country, indeed, may never emerge as a mature democratic nation. The lack of the rule of law; the continuing and unapologetic use of bribes, terror, and manipulation; the rapidity and frequency with which the rich send their money offshore, guaranteeing no continuity in even basic commercial banking loan reserves; and the near-paralytic inability of the average Argentine to mobilize him- or herself towards any selfless behavior that might right the balance -- all these things and more contribute to a fragility that prohibits Argentina from adopting the basic legal, economic, and political frameworks that are needed for it to reach maturity as a nation state. This is a severe commentary, but one I feel is clearly borne out by this book. I encourage you, if you're interested in learning how a nation achieves the status of permanent instability, to read it. Peter Winterble Buenos Aires

I read the Breve Historia in preparation for my first visit to Argentina since 1980. What was that odd hush over Buenos Aires that one noticed in 1980? Why is it that Argentina experiences an economic crisis every three years or so, and sixty years experienced military coups every decade or so? As the previous reviewer noted, Argentina's turbulance is probably due to the structure of the economy and the people. It has always made its money by exporting agricultural products. Their system of estancias originated with huge land grants to early Spanish settlers, and perpetuated itself because large-scale operations are most efficient in agriculture. The pampas are shifting now from cattle to crops and orchards, but the economies of scale remain. It is coming to resemble California's central valley, with criollos playing the part of Mexicans. Top echelons of the military have historically been drawn from the country's leading families. The Catholic Church has been a constant, and generally conservative, influence. Arrayed against them have been labor unions, socialists, anarchists and urban guerilla groups. Romero could do a better job of drawing the foreign connections: most of these would seem to have fed on European intellectual currents of the early 20th century. He is especially critical of the Videla/Viola military government of 1976-83. Whatever benefit may have derived from finally suppressing the Montoneros and other guerilla groups, a mixed clandestine/overt government can have no moral authority. Lacking the authority to discipline its own supporters, the government allowed the military to chronically overspend, to go beyond the pretext of removing dissidents and simply "disappear" people in order to loot their estates, and permitted all sorts of financial shannanigans that ultimately undermined any legitimacy their "reorganization" program might have wished to claim. I enjoyed Romero's use of Spanish. I kept a dictionnary on hand not to understand what he wrote, because context easily filled in most of the blanks, but for the joy of learning new words and seeing them so well deployed.

This interesting book is a translation of "Breve Historia Contemporanea de Argentina", and it is a good way to start studying Argentina's history if you don't speak spanish.However, if you can speak that language, I strongly recommend you to buy the original version in spanish. The reason for that is, in my opinion, that it is always better to read a book in the language it was written, so as not to miss any nuances in meaning, and in order to appreciate better the style of the author. Disregarding how good a translator is, he is bound to make at least some mistakes, sometimes ignoring slight degrees of difference that convey not only meaning, but also feeling. In this version there are parts where it isn't easy to follow the author's ideas, but from my point of view that is due to two things. To start with, it isn't easy to explain Argentina's history, because it is quite complex. As a result, explanations regarding that theme are frequently complicated, even in the original version of this book in spanish. Secondly, translating a book to another language is never easy, and I think that the interpreter (James Brennan) did his job incredibly well. The structure of "A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century" is quite simple, but really useful and eminently practical. After a short introduction, the author starts this book with Yrigoyen's first presidential term, continues with Alvear's presidency and then carries on with Yrigoyen's unfinished second term. He delves deeply into the conservative restoration, and then tries to explain what Perón meant to Argentina, and the polarization of society that his presidency produced. From then on, democratic governments would be constantly interrupted by revolts, and the military would have the final word regarding all matters of importance in Argentina. That, until the Malvina's defeat, which ended up in the collapse of the military regime, and the beginning of a fledging democracy... This, the first edition in english of "Breve Historia Contemporanea de Argentina", has also new chapter that delves into the decade of the 1990s, and that wasn't included in the 1994 spanish edition.Luis Alberto Romero is a very well known argentinian historian, author of other good books. Despite that, this is the one I prefer, at least so far. Notwithstanding the fact that it deals mainly with historical facts, it also includes his interpretation regarding what happened. Some people criticize the author because he ask them to "accept his interpretation of History". I don't think that is the case. The aim of the author was to write an useful and short book for his students and the average reader interested in History, and in order to do so he sometimes had to write directly what he thought about a period, instead of saying what many authors thought about the same period. On the other hand, he does that as little as possible and only in order to keep the number of pages in his book from growing too much, and he never for

This book gives a very good introduction to Argentina's contemporary history. Even though it isn't long, it is remarkably thorough and well documented.Luis Alberto Romero is a very well known argentinian historian, author of other good books. Despite that, this is the one I prefer, at least so far. Notwithstanding the fact that it deals mainly with historical facts, it also includes his interpretation regarding what happened. The structure of the book is quite simple, but really useful and eminently practical. After a short introduction, the author starts this book with Yrigoyen's first presidential term (1916 - 1922), continues with Alvear's presidency and then carries on with Yrigoyen's unfinished second term. He delves deeply into the conservative restoration (1930-1943), and then tries to explain what Perón meant to Argentina, and the reaction that his presidency produced. From then on, democratic governments would be constantly interrupted by revolts, and the military would have the final word regarding all matters of importance in Argentina. That, until the Malvina's defeat, which ended up in the collapse of the military regime, and the beginning of a fledging democracy... Romero concludes this book by telling us what Argentina is like nowadays, in his opinion.On the whole, I think this is an exceptionally good book, superbly well written and easily understandable. I recommend it strongly: it's a keeper !!! :)