A Brief History of Argentina

by Jonathan C. Brown

Introduces readers to the dramatic events, notable people, and special customs and traditions that have shaped many of the world's countries. This series focuses on factors as diverse as the development of the economy to the role of women in society to changes in the political landscape.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2002

About the author

From the University of Texas at Austin Department of History:

Jonathan C. Brown has published four single-authored books: A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776-1860 (1979); Oil and Revolution in Mexico (1993), Latin America: A Social History of the Colonial Period (2nd ed., 2005), and A Brief History of Argentina (2nd ed., 2009). Two of these books have been translated and published in Latin America. His first book on Argentina, published by Cambridge University Press, won the Bolton Prize. Brown also edited a collection of essays on workers and populism in Latin America and co-edited books on the Mexican oil industry and on Argentine social history.

Reviews

[John Crippen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Jeff S. and his Argentine scholar father for the recommendation. This is a great single-volume history. It's very readable and includes maps, excerpts from historical documents, suggested further reading categorized by time period, and a thorough chronology. Wish I had started with this one!

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose this book because my daughter is spending an independent study in Argentina and I wanted to know more (partly because I am not visiting her, partly to understand what she has seen for conversation upon her return).

As other reviewers note, the book is a competent but dry and colorless retelling of 500 years of Argentine history from A to Z. For example, we learn a lot about Juan Peron (and Evita) and their policies, but very little about them as people with character, motivation. How did Peronism (a quasi-fascistic melding of populism and military rule, somewhat recalling Huey Long's Louisiana) come to be? We'll never know from reading this book.

While I am no jingo-ist, this book made me appreciate being an American. At least our history has a founding story with an arc, some underlying values, and a constant sense of course correction. Yes we had slavery and bigotry; we suppressed women; we raped the environment, and fought unjust wars.

Yet counter-movements have attempted to address each of these with some real progress achieved through blood and sweat but also through progressive thought, politics, compromise.

Argentina's tale reads like a series of weak thrusts and counter-thrusts between quasi- (if corrupt) democracy and military rule.

While we US Americans fret about a long, slow decline, Argentina has experienced just in the last 31 years:
--An embarrassing home-team loss in the Faulkland War
--A significant guerrilla/terrorist movement with up to 650 public bombings, kidnappings, etc. a year
--The countervaling Dirty Wars in which the military government tortured and "disappeared" thousands of citizens
--Hyperinflation of up to 3,000 percent a year, which resulted in looting raids on supermarkets
--The biggest-ever government loan default to the IMF in 2001
--An economy that has (over a couple of generations) plunged from 7th to 67th worldwide
--30 percent poverty rate
--The growth of a huge "cartonero" class--people who drag (with their bodies) U Haul-sized trailers around Buenos Aires picking up recyclables
--A reversal of immigration from Europe, which once rivaled the numbers coming through Ellis Island

Again, not to be too smug, but this does make me appreciate living in a country that, despite its many excesses, moral shortcomings, and pecadillos, is relatively stable, reliable, safe, and yet creative, forward-looking, attractive to people from around the world, and growing. Argentina is blessed with an educated populace, many natural resources, a beautiful capital city. I hope they turn it around.

Bizarre sidenote in the "what I learned" department: Argentine terrorists seem fascinated with graverobbing and in some cases severing the hands of noted citizens, including Evita and Che Guevara.

In a calculated political maneuver, Evita's corpse "disappeared" in Europe for 17 years. This backfired by inciting a rebel movement in which revolutionaries kidnapped and killed Argentina's military leader. Ugh!

[John Matthew IV · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great summary of the history of Argentina from the beginning. It is quite a tale.

p. 4: A summary survey of the pre-Columbian peoples of the Southern Cone will suggest the reasons that individualism and independence have become so entrenched in Argentine society.
p. 12: These hunting peoples pursued lives of splendid, if impoverished, individualism.
p. 20: The Spaniards therefore never conquered the Rio de la Plata; they settled it.
p. 26: Nearly all the great cities of today's Latin America has been established between 1492 and the second founding of Buenos Aires in 1580.
p. 29: Mendoz was founded in 1561.
p. 39: The Jesuits were the largest slaveholders in Argentina.
p. 40: Colonial policy forbade the enslavement of indigenous persons except in unusual circumstances, so wealthy Spanish families often purchased African slaves for household work.
p. 45: In 1713, the British South Sea Company gained the exclusive monopoly from the Spanish Crown to import slaves into the Spanish dominions.
p. 52: Bolstered by fear of clerical power in the colonies, the government also expelled the influential Jesuit order and confiscated its extensive properties.
p. 70: The [Jesuit] order was eventually expelled from the Spanish Empire in 1767.
p. 85: By 1810, the power of the Spanish-born merchants had been reduced, and the group was unable to prevent the passing of political and economic power tother hitherto less-privileged Creole cousins. The result of this disintegration was independence.
p. 89: May 10, 1810, a date celebrated today as Argentina's Independence Day.
p. 126: Rosas was also responsible for developing state terrorism in Argentina.
p. 126: The terror did bring about political security for the young nation for the first time since the outbreak of the War of Independence.
p. 129: Juan Bautista Alberdi On Government: "Government represents consumption, not production.""There is no worse argiculturist, merchant, or manufacturer than government."
p. 132: Thereafter, the prospect of immigrants replacing the indigenous people as the future workers on the Pampas motivated the national government to resolve the "Indian problem" through extermination.
p. 132-3: General Julio A. Roca's "Conquest of the Desert" in 1879, finally deprived the indigenous peoples of the last vestiges of their separate autonomy, after 300 years of European effort.
p. 138: The year 1880 marked the beginning of an unprecedented period of "peace and administration" in Argentina.
p. 139: Liberalism refers to an ideological program that dominated two generations of oligarchs and politicians who consolidated national power and ruled from 1880 to 1916 and a more socially diverse group of politicians from 1916 to 1930. In broad terms, their brand of liberalism stood for economic progress, open trade and open markets, foreign investment, and a strong central government.
p. 139: For the most part, this was a regime of the elites for the elites.
P. 149: Workers emigrated from Europe to Argentina in order to improve their lives or "hacer la America" (to make America).
p. 186: Military Manifesto of the Coup of September 6, 1930:
"Responding to the clamor of the people and with the patriotic assistance of the army and navy, we have assumed control of the government of the Nation."
p. 208: The railway nationalization has to be considered the high point of the Peron regime because it satisfied nearly everyone in the populist alliance--workers, nationalists, miliary officers, and the middle class.
p. 241: Argentina experienced a boom in its economy that made the military government very popular, but the generals succumbed to the age-old tendency of government officials entrusted the nation's interests--their immunity corrupted them.
p. 243: In the Dirty War, over 19,000 were killed and over 2 million fled into exile.
p. 250: Pinochet supported Great Britain in the Falklands War, the only South American head of state to do so
p. 262: In 1989, only 30,000 of 30 million Argentines paid any income taxes at all.
p. 306: 1528 Sebastian Cabot explores the Parana River and is killed by Charrua warriors. He was the son of John Cabot and he was not killed in 1528.
p. 322: Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina
p. 323: Military Rebellion in Argentina: Between Coups and Consolidation
p. 328: Argentina: What Went Wrong
p. 334: Peron and the Enigmas of Argentina
p. 334: Peron: A Biography

[Managing my virtual footprint · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive, but the author can't help himself from going back and forth during time periods, often making the text confusing.

[Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did get an overview of Argentina's history, and I don't know enough to criticize it for accuracy or bias, but there were places were it was inconsistent or even incoherent. For example: the Due Obedience law was passed but the soldiers were still not placated, so they protested, and in response the Due Obedience law was passed. Huh? If I had to do it all over again, I'd pick a different author.

[Catawsumb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good succinct background for a traveler- gave me some really valuable context. Especially good on the class and racial divides over the years and how those have shaped history. The history of Argentina is a fairly depressing one- they seem to fall into the same unfortunate patterns repeatedly- but this book was useful in helping me understand that.

[Xiao Yu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is far less insightful, and possibly quite misleading. This author's seemingly positive sentiments towards Martínez de Hoz - the minister of economy during Argentina's miserable dictatorship in late 70s - is, well, astonishing. I suggest other readers who are interested in Argentina history pick up the book from Luis Alberto Romero instead.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dry, but it matched my goal of getting a brief overview.

[JennyB · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is exactly what it claims to be - a short history of Argentina, no more, no less. It won't change your life, but if you want to learn about this subject, it's a decent place to start.

[Matias · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good, brief book if you want a quick history of Argentina.