A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century [Paperback]

Luis Alberto Romero (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0271021926 | ISBN-13: 978-0271021928 | Publication Date: March 1, 2002

Written as an introductory text for university students and the general public, this text is a profound reflection on the "Argentine dilemma" and the challenges that the country faces as it tries to rebuild democracy. Romero reconstructs and analyzes Argentina's tortuous, often tragic modern history, from the "alluvial society" born of mass immigration, to the dramatic years of Juan and Eva Peron, to the recent period of military dictatorship and democracy. For this first English-language edition, Romero has written a new chapter covering the 1990s.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Luis Alberto Romero is Professor of History at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. Among his other books is (with Leandro H. Gutiérrez) Sectores populares, cultura y política: Buenos Aires en la entreguerra (Sudamericana, 1995).

James P. Brennan is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of The Labor Wars in Córdoba, 1955–1976: Ideology, Work, and Labor Politics in an Argentine Industrial City (Harvard, 1995).

Product Details

• Paperback: 370 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271021926
• ISBN-13: 978-0271021928
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #358,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > History > Americas > South America > Argentina

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost as good as the original version :), April 17, 2004

By 

M. B. Alcat "Curiosity killed the cat, but sa... (Los Angeles, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

This interesting book is a translation of "Breve Historia Contemporanea de Argentina", and it is a good way to start studying Argentina's history if you don't speak spanish.

However, if you can speak that language, I strongly recommend you to buy the original version in spanish. The reason for that is, in my opinion, that it is always better to read a book in the language it was written, so as not to miss any nuances in meaning, and in order to appreciate better the style of the author. Disregarding how good a translator is, he is bound to make at least some mistakes, sometimes ignoring slight degrees of difference that convey not only meaning, but also feeling.

In this version there are parts where it isn't easy to follow the author's ideas, but from my point of view that is due to two things. To start with, it isn't easy to explain Argentina's history, because it is quite complex. As a result, explanations regarding that theme are frequently complicated, even in the original version of this book in spanish. Secondly, translating a book to another language is never easy, and I think that the interpreter (James Brennan) did his job incredibly well.

The structure of "A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century" is quite simple, but really useful and eminently practical. After a short introduction, the author starts this book with Yrigoyen's first presidential term, continues with Alvear's presidency and then carries on with Yrigoyen's unfinished second term. He delves deeply into the conservative restoration, and then tries to explain what Perón meant to Argentina, and the polarization of society that his presidency produced. From then on, democratic governments would be constantly interrupted by revolts, and the military would have the final word regarding all matters of importance in Argentina. That, until the Malvina's defeat, which ended up in the collapse of the military regime, and the beginning of a fledging democracy... This, the first edition in english of "Breve Historia Contemporanea de Argentina", has also new chapter that delves into the decade of the 1990s, and that wasn't included in the 1994 spanish edition.

Luis Alberto Romero is a very well known argentinian historian, author of other good books. Despite that, this is the one I prefer, at least so far. Notwithstanding the fact that it deals mainly with historical facts, it also includes his interpretation regarding what happened.

Some people criticize the author because he ask them to "accept his interpretation of History". I don't think that is the case. The aim of the author was to write an useful and short book for his students and the average reader interested in History, and in order to do so he sometimes had to write directly what he thought about a period, instead of saying what many authors thought about the same period. On the other hand, he does that as little as possible and only in order to keep the number of pages in his book from growing too much, and he never forgets to include in the bibliography reading material from authors that think differently.

On the whole, I think this is an outstanding book. It gives a very good introduction to Argentina's Contemporary History, and even though it isn't overly long, it is remarkably thorough and well documented. I prefer the spanish version, but I think that this version is also very good, and I must recognize that it has a merit that the other didn't: it allows those who don't speak spanish to read it.

Belen Alcat

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good But Not Enough Narrative, September 23, 2003

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

This book provides an overview of Argentine history in the 20th century with a post-script from just last year. This book is combined narrative with a good deal of broad analysis looking at major factors governing the history of Argentina. In the Introduction, the author states that he is aiming to avoid a schematic view but wants to provide a large scale narrative. Despite this statement, this book tends towards structural analysis and a major theme, the difficulty of establishing democratic institutions, emerges from the narrative. Major structural factors that drive Argentine history are identified as Argentina's strong and often stormy coupling to international markets, the emergence of a strong and at times paternalistic state that tended to overpower other civic institutions, the development of distinct sectors of society lacking a common political culture, and the Argentine preference for charismatic leaders who appear to be all things to all people. In general, this is an informative and intelligent book. A defect of the book is that there is not sufficient narrative for a non-Argentine audience. This book was apparently written originally for the broad Argentine public and despite the author's best efforts at including significant narrative, it seems to presuppose a high school level knowledge of Argentine history. Another drawback is the writing style. As shown in several chapters, the author can write quite clearly and sometimes powerfully, but there are many passages written in academic jargon. The word discourse, for example, appears frequently and is used inconsistently as a semi-techical term to describe ideology and a variety of related phenomena. Whether this is the fault of the author or his translator cannot be known without reading the original spanish version.

1.0 out of 5 stars A Rote and Boring Timeline, November 11, 2011

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Marc Peraino (Mount Vernon, WA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

I am very interested in Argentinean history, but this book was very disappointing because it presents Argentina's history as a bland series of events from an extremely objective point of view. There are no opinions, no emotions, and no personal stories whatsoever. It's purely a documentation of facts and events. Personally, that's not something I look for when researching a country's history.