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A History of Argentina: From the Spanish Conquest to the Present
In A History of Argentina , originally published in Spanish in 2020, Ezequiel Adamovsky presents over five hundred years of Argentine economic, political, social, and cultural history. Adamovsky highlights the experiences of women, Indigenous communities, and other groups that have traditionally been left out of the historical archive. He focuses on harmful aspects of Spanish colonization such as gender subjugation, the violence enacted in the name of the Catholic Church, the role of the economy as it shifted from the encomienda system into modern industrialization, and the devastating effects of slavery, violence, and disease brought to the region by Spanish colonizers. Adamovsky also discusses Argentina’s independence and territorial consolidation, the first democratic elections in 1916, military coups, Peronism, democratization and the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s, and many other facets of Argentine life up to the 2019 presidential election. Concise, accessible, and comprehensive, A History of Argentina is an essential guide to this nation.
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360 pages, Paperback
Published March 8, 2024
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April 30, 2024
It’s hard to find a serious English-language history of Argentina, so I was glad to see that Duke University Press filled this gap. The work is part of a Latin America in Translation series that Duke and UNC have been publishing since 1993.
I bought this book after returning from a trip to Argentina and Chilean Patagonia last month. I’d visited typical tourist destinations: Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Calafate, Las Torres and couldn’t understand how the affluence and European vibe I was seeing squared with the 200% inflation and 40% poverty rates reported in Argentina. There’s always a disconnect between tourists’ experiences and locals’ reality, but the dissonance seemed particularly acute on this trip. The Argentina I experienced seemed closer to Switzerland than to Mexico.
A History of Argentina reads very much like a textbook. It’s essentially a social and economic history. None of the key figures in the country's history are animated, not even the Perons. The translation is fluid, but it doesn’t go out of its way to accommodate the Anglo-American reader. A case in point is that the translator calls the Falkland Islands the Malvinas. That’s correct, but “Falkland” would be more familiar to the anglophone reader. Another minor irritation: land measurements are in hectares rather than acres or square miles.
One of the themes of the book is that Argentina has always struggled to reconcile its elites’ white European view of the country with its heterogeneous reality. Genetic studies show that the Argentine gene pool is 66% European, 31% indigenous and 3% sub-Saharan African. Of course, the weights vary widely from one family to another, but the author makes the point that more than two-thirds (70%) of the Argentine population is not purely European. More interestingly, there are big differences from region to region. In Greater Buenos Aires, the European genetic weight is 82%. In Esquel (Patagonia) it’s 51% and in Salta in the northwest part of the country, it’s 36%. The fact that these regional racial variations align with socioeconomic disparities suggests to the author that Argentine society has failed to deal with ethnic differences in an egalitarian manner. He asserts that non-European Argentines are marginalized to the point of invisibility. I have no way of knowing if this is correct, but it certainly reflects an outlook that many would consider “woke.” Some readers may also not appreciate the author’s criticism of the IMF, neoliberalism, and the capitalist world system. Others may question the importance the author places on identity – ethnic, sexual, gender.
Argentina’s political evolution is complex. Independence from Spain in 1810 was followed by decades of civil wars between Unitarians who favored strong central authority and Federalists who wanted to preserve their regional power bases. In 1853 the united provinces - excluding Buenos Aires, which had seceded – promulgated a new, US-inspired constitution that established a federal structure, a bicameral legislature, a judiciary with lifetime tenure, separation of powers, a bill of rights, and checks and balances. The author calls this “a counter-majoritarian system” in which “ordinary people were given no say whatsoever.” Some readers may disagree.
In 1862 Buenos Aires was reincorporated into Argentina by force and became the capital. A successful and exceptionally lethal war with Paraguay (1865-70) followed and resulted in territorial gains in the northeast. Heavy foreign investment (mostly British) and massive southern and eastern European immigration led to tremendous economic growth and domination of the provinces by elites in Buenos Aires. A national currency was created in 1881, and a national bank ten years after that. A series of military campaigns against indigenous people netted 123,000 square miles by 1903. Most of this newly privatized property ended up in the hands of large-scale landholders.
Labor unrest and violent government responses accelerated in the second decade of the 20th century. The effects of the 1929 stock market crash rippled into Argentina, and in 1930 a military coup ended 14 years of democracy and began a decades-long breakdown of the constitutional order. Right wing nationalism grew and a revisionism emerged that glorified gaucho/criollo/Catholic traditions at the expense of liberalism. To counteract the growing influence of Communism, Juan Peron was named as head of the Department of Labor and Social Security and introduced pension benefits along with Christmas bonuses, improved workers’ compensation, and extra vacation days. Within two years, the military government removed him following a backlash by business owners and employers’ associations. Then, just days later, a general strike paralyzed the country and Peron was released from detention. In 1946 he became president.
The author characterizes Peronism as popular nationalism that promoted a “non-antagonistic class struggle” that elevated plebian culture without advocating the elimination of social hierarchies. In any case, it underwent continuous mutations as the economic landscape shifted, and in his second term, veered sharply into authoritarianism. Violence ensued and Peron, opposed by the Church and the military, fled into exile in 1955. Peronism was outlawed and Evita’s corpse was kidnapped. The country cycled between uprisings and violent repression until Peron, with his third wife Isabella, returned in 1973 for a third term. A year later, Peron was dead, succeeded by VP Isabella. Chaos and repression continued until she was deposed in a military coup in 1976. This was the start of a dictatorship that directed an unprecedented wave of state terrorism that nonetheless found substantial popular support until 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and was defeated by the British.
The book takes us through 2019, when Argentina held its ninth consecutive presidential election, managing to cling to democracy through four decades of economic chaos and social upheaval. That seems somewhat hopeful, but the book ends with a depressing thought:
Final comments:
Overall, this was a very worthwhile book, but you need to have a good tolerance for economics to get through it. It gave me a completely different perspective on Argentina than the one I developed on vacation.
There is a very brief comparison to Uruguay in the epilogue, but I think the author missed an opportunity by not comparing Argentina to Chile, too. All the maps and some of the charts were excellent, but readers would have also benefited from some sort of timeline or grid that sequentially listed the various heads of government, their years (or months or days) in power, and their key accomplishments and failures. Wikipedia has this of course, but an improved version in the book itself would have been nice. Along the same lines, a glossary of political parties and movements would have saved me a lot of googling.
I bought this book after returning from a trip to Argentina and Chilean Patagonia last month. I’d visited typical tourist destinations: Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Calafate, Las Torres and couldn’t understand how the affluence and European vibe I was seeing squared with the 200% inflation and 40% poverty rates reported in Argentina. There’s always a disconnect between tourists’ experiences and locals’ reality, but the dissonance seemed particularly acute on this trip. The Argentina I experienced seemed closer to Switzerland than to Mexico.
A History of Argentina reads very much like a textbook. It’s essentially a social and economic history. None of the key figures in the country's history are animated, not even the Perons. The translation is fluid, but it doesn’t go out of its way to accommodate the Anglo-American reader. A case in point is that the translator calls the Falkland Islands the Malvinas. That’s correct, but “Falkland” would be more familiar to the anglophone reader. Another minor irritation: land measurements are in hectares rather than acres or square miles.
One of the themes of the book is that Argentina has always struggled to reconcile its elites’ white European view of the country with its heterogeneous reality. Genetic studies show that the Argentine gene pool is 66% European, 31% indigenous and 3% sub-Saharan African. Of course, the weights vary widely from one family to another, but the author makes the point that more than two-thirds (70%) of the Argentine population is not purely European. More interestingly, there are big differences from region to region. In Greater Buenos Aires, the European genetic weight is 82%. In Esquel (Patagonia) it’s 51% and in Salta in the northwest part of the country, it’s 36%. The fact that these regional racial variations align with socioeconomic disparities suggests to the author that Argentine society has failed to deal with ethnic differences in an egalitarian manner. He asserts that non-European Argentines are marginalized to the point of invisibility. I have no way of knowing if this is correct, but it certainly reflects an outlook that many would consider “woke.” Some readers may also not appreciate the author’s criticism of the IMF, neoliberalism, and the capitalist world system. Others may question the importance the author places on identity – ethnic, sexual, gender.
Argentina’s political evolution is complex. Independence from Spain in 1810 was followed by decades of civil wars between Unitarians who favored strong central authority and Federalists who wanted to preserve their regional power bases. In 1853 the united provinces - excluding Buenos Aires, which had seceded – promulgated a new, US-inspired constitution that established a federal structure, a bicameral legislature, a judiciary with lifetime tenure, separation of powers, a bill of rights, and checks and balances. The author calls this “a counter-majoritarian system” in which “ordinary people were given no say whatsoever.” Some readers may disagree.
In 1862 Buenos Aires was reincorporated into Argentina by force and became the capital. A successful and exceptionally lethal war with Paraguay (1865-70) followed and resulted in territorial gains in the northeast. Heavy foreign investment (mostly British) and massive southern and eastern European immigration led to tremendous economic growth and domination of the provinces by elites in Buenos Aires. A national currency was created in 1881, and a national bank ten years after that. A series of military campaigns against indigenous people netted 123,000 square miles by 1903. Most of this newly privatized property ended up in the hands of large-scale landholders.
Labor unrest and violent government responses accelerated in the second decade of the 20th century. The effects of the 1929 stock market crash rippled into Argentina, and in 1930 a military coup ended 14 years of democracy and began a decades-long breakdown of the constitutional order. Right wing nationalism grew and a revisionism emerged that glorified gaucho/criollo/Catholic traditions at the expense of liberalism. To counteract the growing influence of Communism, Juan Peron was named as head of the Department of Labor and Social Security and introduced pension benefits along with Christmas bonuses, improved workers’ compensation, and extra vacation days. Within two years, the military government removed him following a backlash by business owners and employers’ associations. Then, just days later, a general strike paralyzed the country and Peron was released from detention. In 1946 he became president.
The author characterizes Peronism as popular nationalism that promoted a “non-antagonistic class struggle” that elevated plebian culture without advocating the elimination of social hierarchies. In any case, it underwent continuous mutations as the economic landscape shifted, and in his second term, veered sharply into authoritarianism. Violence ensued and Peron, opposed by the Church and the military, fled into exile in 1955. Peronism was outlawed and Evita’s corpse was kidnapped. The country cycled between uprisings and violent repression until Peron, with his third wife Isabella, returned in 1973 for a third term. A year later, Peron was dead, succeeded by VP Isabella. Chaos and repression continued until she was deposed in a military coup in 1976. This was the start of a dictatorship that directed an unprecedented wave of state terrorism that nonetheless found substantial popular support until 1982, when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands and was defeated by the British.
The book takes us through 2019, when Argentina held its ninth consecutive presidential election, managing to cling to democracy through four decades of economic chaos and social upheaval. That seems somewhat hopeful, but the book ends with a depressing thought:
“It is by no means evident that the planet is evolving toward greater harmony and prosperity, nor that its situation is stable and its future predictable—in fact, quite the contrary. Perhaps Argentina’s abnormality is not, after all, so abnormal but only more premature and pronounced. Could Argentina be a mere chapter in the long agony of capitalism as a global system, an episode unfolding in a particularly peripheral corner of a world that has long been heading toward madness?”
Final comments:
Overall, this was a very worthwhile book, but you need to have a good tolerance for economics to get through it. It gave me a completely different perspective on Argentina than the one I developed on vacation.
There is a very brief comparison to Uruguay in the epilogue, but I think the author missed an opportunity by not comparing Argentina to Chile, too. All the maps and some of the charts were excellent, but readers would have also benefited from some sort of timeline or grid that sequentially listed the various heads of government, their years (or months or days) in power, and their key accomplishments and failures. Wikipedia has this of course, but an improved version in the book itself would have been nice. Along the same lines, a glossary of political parties and movements would have saved me a lot of googling.
November 18, 2025
By far the best history of Argentina available in English. Preparing for my first trip to that country, I had despaired of finding a good comprehensive history. The obstacles for historians are understandable: I've never encountered a nation with such an intricate political, cultural, and economic history. A given political party or movement can encompass ever shifting and wildly divergent ideologies that can shift in a heart beat. Adamovsky untangles this complex web with precision, clarity, and at a level of detail so that the reader never feels bogged down. He also pays admirable attention to those sectors of society that traditional history forgot -- the working class, indigenous peoples, women. I look forward to reading anything else written by Adamovsky that I can get my hands on.
July 15, 2025
Great book for those looking for a synopsis of Argentine history.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews