Forwarded from Nestor (readings in Argentine history)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Pr wrote today:

>>Unfortunately, there is not a good general history from a left 
perspective on the country, but I've been advised by a couple of 
academics that David Rock's "Argentina, 1516-1987: From Spanish 
Colonization to Alfonsin" is fairly reliable.<<

Rock´s history is written from the point of view of the Alfonsinist 
petty bourgeois group. In my own view it is not a proper 
introduction. There are two much better general histories, although I 
am afraid they cannot be obtained in English and most probably are 
also out of print (though it is not impossible to obtain them here in 
Argentina). Neither is online, however.

The first one is by a Catholic popular historian (at the same time an 
academician of the highest level in the Croce tradition), Antonio J. 
Pérez Amuchástegui. It was prepared in five volumes, full with 
illustrations, cartography, methodological considerations, comments 
on Argentinean culture and architecture. The name is "Crónica 
Histórica Argentina" and was published by Codex during the early 70s. 
It reaches 1930.

The other one is written by a Marxist, Jorge Abelardo Ramos, who 
wrote his "Revolución and Contrarrevolución en la Argentina" after 
1955, as part of an effort to build a revolutionary left which 
understood the national question in Argentina. Ramos, unfortunately, 
derived towards the worst kind of bourgeois nationalism after 1975, 
and rewrote parts of his history repeatedly afterwards. However, it 
is a good general history (in a sense, it is a "history of 
civilization" in Argentina, in the French sense). There are recent 
editions, though they are not Marxist as the ones published between 
1955 and 1975.

I would not recommend another general history of Argentina. But these 
are in Spanish and they are hardly available. Don´t know if something 
better than Rock´s book can be obtained in English, but I doubt it. 

-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx on 10/25/2001

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