Peron: A Biography

I was in college in the United States during the period of Peron's return to power, the collapse of his wife Isabel's regime and the subsequent "Dirty War" carried out by the military dictatorship that followed them. I was amazed at the extreme passion the Peronist masses showed for their beloved leader and, on the other hand, the way the military junta that overthrew Isabel quite openly carried out a reign of terror in a country that was not behind the Iron Curtain but was a part of the Western world and continued to carry out normal relations with the rest of the world. Everybody knew that the main torture center was the Naval Mechanics School and that the death squads of the notorious right-wing "AAA" drove around in Ford Falcon's. The regime's methods were right out in the open and it seemed they wanted people to know what they were doing and couldn't care less what the rest of the civilized world thought. It seems that Argentina's descent into this hell of repression came about as a result of forces galvanized by one man, Juan Domingo Peron. Argentina, like the other countries of Latin America, although influenced by liberal, constitutionalist influences from the United States and Europe already in the mid-19th century, had great difficulty metamorphasizing into a stable democratic country, in spite of the fact that the population there, unlike in most of Latin America, was primarily of white European origin, without a large number of indingenous, Indian or mixed race people. It wasn't until the beginnning of the 20th century that a true liberal, pro-democratic political movement, called the Radical Civic Union (RCU) came into being, and the first truly free democratic election for President didn't come until about the start of the First World War. Argentina is a country blessed with natural resources and fertile farmland and became one of the richest countries in the world after World War I increased the demand for its agricultural products. In spite of this, the large working class had no real political representation and they were not, by and large, able to benefit from the wealth the country was generating. Argentina's democratically-minded middle class, which the RCU represented, did not identify politically or socially with the working class, which felt disenfranchised. Finally, as a result of the military coup of 1943, a military junta entered power that claimed to represent the worker's interests for the first time. The leading force in the junta was Peron, who was a Colonel at the time. He went to work to distribute the nation's wealth to this sector for the first time and greatly expanded their rights and benefits, but a darker side of him also showed in his pro-fascist tendencies. He was elected in a fair, democratic election to the Presidency in 1946, but his popularity, along with his charismatic wife, Eva, did not satisfy him, so he began using the law to crack down on the opposition groups. He squandered the nation's w

I always wondered about the live of this dictator. Everybody knows of his second wife Eva, and the various military regimes of Argentina. However Page makes the real Person shine through. This was a man who changed the balance of power in Argentina. His laws and measures uplifted the downtrodden workers and peasants. He also flirted with fascism and instituted terrorism in the late sixties and early seventies. He did much good for Argentina and spawned a movement that is still going in that country. There are both positives and negatives to this leader. Unfortunately, this man died in 1973, and left his country to spiral into dictatorship and terrorism as a result of his politics. Page captures the true Peron in this monumental work of close to 600 pages. He shows who Person really was, and descibes the qualities that made up this leader.

Joseph Page's biography of Juan Peron is masterful in the breadth and scope that it covers. It not only does an excellent job of describing Peron's life and his impact on Argentina but you can also get a sense of the surrounding times and the development of the country. He spends quite a bit of time developing the backdrop for Peron's rise and his influence on the country. Due and fair consideration is given to the role of Eva Peron and for those who are interested in more I recommend the Navarro biography. The book is very well written and is a fast read. If you are interested in the Peronist party and this time in Argentina this is a great book to start with.

This is a monumental work by an author who made six trips to Argentina, and also traveled to Spain and Panama, while researching this book. The author refers to Juan Peron as the most remarkable and enduring leader in Latin American history. The author proceeds to describe this remarkable career, following Peron from his humble birth in rural Argentina, to his military training, to the Presidency (1946), exile, and return to Argentina in the early 1970s where he would die in office. Brief mention is made of Isabel's tragic and short reign as President after the death of her husband. Extensive information is also available regarding Peron's relationship with Eva Peron ("Evita"), with a few chapters devoted to her. A section of photographs is available as well. The author's description of Juan Peron is comprehensive and complex, and may therefore be best suited for someone already very familiar with Peron and contemporary Argentine history. If you are looking for a more brief and succinct historical rendering of Peron's career, you may want to look elsewhere, perhaps to JUAN AND EVA PERON by Clive Foss. My favorite biography of Juan Peron is PERON AND ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA by Robert D. Crassweller. Crassweller explains in PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA that Peron was a product of the "Hispanic Creole" tradition, and that all his successes and failures can be seen within the context of that culture, and in many ways were *shaped* by that culture. In fact, Crassweller argues that Peron's real talent was his keen insight into the culture, his keen intuition in understanding how to reach out to and unify as many different segments of Argentina as possible. While Joseph Page does attempt to provide cultural insight, he does not succeed to the extent that Crassweller does. Joseph Page comes to a conclusion that may surprise many: that Juan Peron was a pacifist at heart; "He steadfastly rejected violence as an open instrument of policy." Page also points out the irony that Peron, once considered by some as a "South American Hitler," would have never plunged or plundered his country into war, and that it was the men who ousted Peron who went on to kill thousands of people.