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  • Dignifying Argentina. Peronism, Citizenship, and Mass Consumption by Eduardo Elena
  • Marcelo Rougier
Eduardo Elena . Dignifying Argentina. Peronism, Citizenship, and Mass Consumption. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. 332 pp. ISBN 978-0822961703, $27.95.

The movement that emerged around Argentinean president Juan Perón (or Peronism) is, beyond doubt, one of the most discussed topics in twentieth-century history. The historiographical renewal in this regard has been impressive in recent years, even in dimensions that recover various aspects of the social reality, unthinkable until very recently. Yet, Eduardo Elena's book will surely find a place among the best studies about Peronism. Elena focuses specifically on popular consumption [End Page 404] and demonstrates how its expansion contributed to a new definition of citizenship that was forged during the Peronist experience between 1944 and 1955. But it also reveals the tensions and contradictions that the economic and social policies generated in this field over that period.

The value of Elena's work is explained both for addressing a largely overlooked subject and for its rigorous research. Nothing seems to have been left out of his quite updated bibliographic review, whereas the broad sources used in his primary research are worked with intelligence and placed in its proper context. The use of numerous private and official publications, films, documents prepared by different government agencies, and mainly the correspondence sent from citizens to governmental offices provides an empirical cogency to the work that is unusual in recent studies on some of these aspects, often focused almost solely on oral history, memory, and the speeches of actors. Also noteworthy is the lively and engaging writing, a fact not less remarkable for such a rigorous academic study.

The work is organized on seven chapters. The first two should be understood as a necessary introduction to the specific issue, as they explore the restrictions on consumption of most Argentine families during the thirties and the hard years of the Second World War. However, these chapters are important because the author shows in them how the concern for the "dignified life" began to take shape and how that concern constituted a substantial part of the social agenda that the Peronist proposal will later pick up. In the next three chapters, Elena shows in great detail the variety of mechanisms used to increase the consumption and the evident rise in the standards of living during the early years of the new government, those of higher economic growth. All these happened in the context of a growing state planning. Strictly speaking, these mechanisms and the better conditions aimed to go far beyond an improvement in the workers' wages purchasing power. The extension of consumption to large sectors of the population also implied a greater appreciation of consumers as "dignified" and active participants of the social and political life, although this should be considered a phenomenon almost exclusive to the large cities. Chapter 6 is very original and draws on letters from individuals and some groups after a consultation campaign of the government, conducted prior to the elaboration of Perón's Second Five-Year Plan. According to Elena, these letters show the new ways of communication and networks of political interaction—but also tensions—among the regime base and the government projects. They also show the Peronist regime capabilities of disciplining the merchant class and consumers. The final chapter mainly refers to the period of adjustment of the economic policy, which was undertaken by the government with strength from 1952 (although some important [End Page 405] features can be displayed in that direction since 1949) when problems on the international environment appeared and would have important effects on real wages and consumption. Perhaps at this point, the space devoted to the last years of the Peronist administration is somewhat insufficient regarding the treatment of the years of the initial outpost. However, Elena manages to give a satisfactory account of threats to the "dignified life" and the concern of authorities (and obviously of consumers) to sustain the high levels achieved.

The author's interpretation is at once complex and nuanced. It allows us to depart from the crude (and not always reliable) statistics and closer to the reality...

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