The Argentina Reader: History, Culture, Politics (review)

Argentine historiography is haunted by a narrative of decline: a once prosperous, sophisticated, even democratic society gives way over the course of the twentieth century to a third-world economy and an unstable, often barbaric political system. And simplistic, reductive explanations for this disaster are far too common. With this expertly selected collection of primary documents and scholarly works, Gabriela Nouzeilles and Graciela Montaldo have avoided these pitfalls and presented instead a rich and complex introduction to Argentina. For college instructors seeking an English language anthology for a course on Argentine history and culture, this work is simply indispensable.

The Argentina Reader is divided into ten chapters that cover the nation's history chronologically from the colonial period to the present day, with an emphasis on the twentieth century. In their choice of texts, the editors have succeeded in representing the rich heterogeneity of Argentine culture and in giving voice to subordinate and marginalized groups. In addition to many of the classics of the nation's intellectual tradition—Hernández's Martín Fierro, Sarmiento's Facundo, Echeverría's "El Matadero," Lugones's El payador, Martínez Estrada's Radiografía de la pampa—the collection excerpts dozens of less canonical, but equally enlightening texts. Among many others, the personal letters of Italian immigrant Oreste Sola, union leader Agustín Tosco's first person account of the Cordobazo, and Tununa Mercado's compelling description of her exile in Mexico during the military dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s illuminate Argentine social and political history. Contemporary Argentine academics are represented here as well, most usefully in Tulio Halperín Donghi's essential account of the independence war, David Viñas's denunciation of the genocidal violence of the late nineteenth-century Liberal state, and Guillermo O'Donnell's classic account of "bureaucratic authoritarianism."

Despite its emphasis on political history, the anthology pays significant attention to culture, including tango, folk music, soccer, poetry, fiction, avant-garde art, and comic strips. The editors have excerpted all of these different types of texts effectively, producing easily digestible pieces that are not disastrously stripped of their context. The English translations—many of them by Patricia Owen Steiner—are generally excellent, a particularly important attribute given that the collection presents more than forty texts that have never before appeared in English. Likewise, the editors' Introduction as well as the brief notes that introduce each of the texts will serve to orient students of all levels.

Inevitably, some historical periods are treated more effectively than others. Particularly excellent is the chapter on Peronism, which avoids reproducing the structuralist biases of an earlier historiography and will therefore be extremely useful to instructors. A lengthy excerpt from Daniel James's groundbreaking account of the impact of Peronist ideology anchors the chapter, which presents a host of diverse perspectives on modern Argentina's most formative political experience. Less successful is the chapter dedicated to the first half of the twentieth century, which neglects recent scholarship on the Unión Cívica Radical and pays only scant attention to anarchism, syndicalism, and socialism. The innovative scholarship of Luis Alberto Romero and Leandro Gutiérrez on the rise of barrio culture in interwar Buenos Aires would have been a useful addition here, as would any consideration of the Argentine film industry of the 1930s and 1940s. Also useful would have been an excerpt from Eduardo Gutiérrez's Juan Moreira, an example of gauchesque literature that was hugely influential among urban workers at the turn of the century and would have been interesting for students to read alongside Hernández and Lugones.

Of course, since any one-volume introduction to Argentina is by necessity incomplete, this list of omissions is a bit arbitrary and beside the point. The Argentina Reader is a terrific pedagogical tool. By providing such an impressive variety of voices and perspectives...