Patriotas, cosmopolitas y nacionalistas: La construccion de la nacionalidad argentina a fines del siglo XIX (review)

Bertoni's study stands out among the few high quality cultural histories of its chosen period. In tracing the growing sense of nationality in Argentina, the author correctly emphasizes the importance of responses to immigration in the late 1880s and the influence of European militarism and nationalism in the 1890s. In the late 1880s, she notes the impact of immigration on primary education, where a new emphasis on "patriotic" teaching continued over the next half-century. In the 1890s, the influence of militarist ideas borrowed mainly from Germany determined the introduction of organized physical exercise in the schools. Bertoni devotes a substantial chapter to "Heroes, Statues, and Patriot Holidays," illustrating the competing myths and interpretations of the nation's history. She she also delves into the history of museums. Other issues addressed by the book include the often-discussed question of the naturalization of immigrants. On one side, Bertoni provides new documentation on the paranoia of the creole elite, and on the other, the campaigns for political rights among immigrant associations during the early 1890s after the Baring Crisis. The author introduces new materials on the turn-of-the-century army reform led by General Pablo Ricchieri. She examines the origins of the liberal and nationalist schools of historical research. Secondary and less-known issues include reactions to Italian proposals in the mid-1880s to assert control over the Italian "colony" in Argentina. In the 1890s, Bertoni shows how the cultural rapprochement with Spain was connected to new doctrines of nationalism stressing common cultural and ethnic origin. (Another important factor was the 1898 Spanish-American War.)

The book is a major bibliographic as well as analytic contribution. It includes a listing of a large body of unfamiliar material on provincial and local history. Bertoni recognizes the European origins of many of the nationalist ideas she examines and skillfully relates them to local issues and conditions. She provides new information on the careers of early nationalist politicians such as Estanislao Zeballos and Indalecio Gómez. They played a prominent role in the political reform of 1912, an issue related to questions of citizenship and nationality. The more familiar topics in the book include the revolt of the Swiss colonists of Santa Fe of 1893. On this subject, Bertoni also introduces new material.

The quality of the book derives less from the originality of its subject matter than from the high quality of the data the author assembles. However, like many erstwhile dissertations, the book has a slow pace, and some of its theses could be sharpened. At times, external comparisons could be introduced. In the 1890s, for example, the Argentines remained strongly aware of the crisis in South Africa leading to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. In South Africa, the Boers ranged themselves against the immigrant "Uitlanders." The Argentines often perceived potential similarities and saw in South Africa a model they should avoid. In the discussion on the 1890s (the more important and interesting of the two decades), the author might have stressed the importance of the boundary dispute with Chile more strongly. Prospects of war with Chile deepened efforts to recruit the support of the Italian community and to assimilate the immigrants. War-mongering created the brand of late-nineteenth-century rabble-rousing nationalism, fanned by the tabloid journalism, known as jingoism. In Argentina, La Prensa of Buenos Aires led the press in the same direction as William Randolph Hearst in the United States and Lord Northcliffe in Britain. In the late 1890s, during the same conflict, conservative politicians such as Zeballos launched the first populist movements in Buenos Aires, which became prototypes of the mass movements of the twentieth century. The rise of popular nationalism in...