Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron
by Nicholas Fraser
from W. W. Norton & Company
The Argentina Reader: History, Culture, Politics (The Latin America Readers)
from Duke University Press
Excessively European, refreshingly European, not as European as it looks, struggling to overcome a delusion that it is European. Argentina—in all its complexity—has often been obscured by variations of the "like Europe and not like the rest of Latin America" cliché. The Argentina Reader deliberately breaks from that viewpoint. This essential introduction to Argentina’s history, culture, and society provides a richer, more comprehensive look at one of the most paradoxical of Latin American nations: a nation that used to be among the richest in the world, with the largest middle class in Latin America, yet one that entered the twenty-first century with its economy in shambles and its citizenry seething with frustration.
This diverse collection brings together songs, articles, comic strips, scholarly essays, poems, and short stories. Most pieces are by Argentines. More than forty of the texts have never before appeared in English. The Argentina Reader contains photographs from Argentina’s National Archives and images of artwork by some of the country’s most talented painters and sculptors. Many selections deal with the history of indigenous Argentines, workers, women, blacks, and other groups often ignored in descriptions of the country. At the same time, the book includes excerpts by or about such major political figures as José de San MartÃÂn and Juan Perón. Pieces from literary and social figures virtually unknown in the United States appear alongside those by more well-known writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Ricardo Piglia, and Julio Cortázar.
The Argentina Reader covers the Spanish colonial regime; the years of nation building following Argentina’s independence from Spain in 1810; and the sweeping progress of economic growth and cultural change that made Argentina, by the turn of the twentieth century, the most modern country in Latin America. The bulk of the collection focuses on the twentieth century: on the popular movements that enabled Peronism and the revolutionary dreams of the 1960s and 1970s; on the dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 and the accompanying culture of terror and resistance; and, finally, on the contradictory and disconcerting tendencies unleashed by the principles of neoliberalism and the new global economy. The book also includes a list of suggestions for further reading.
The Argentina Reader is an invaluable resource for those interested in learning about Argentine history and culture, whether in the classroom or in preparation for travel in Argentina.
And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina
by Paul Blustein
from PublicAffairs
It's not often--or maybe ever--that a book steeped in emerging-market economic theory reads like a thriller. But And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) has cliffhangers and plot twists equal to a detective's tale, as Paul Blustein chronicles the spectacular rise and fall of Argentina's economy at the turn of the 21st century. The book has its flaws, of course, including the author's insistence on using goofy metaphors from the overripe Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita (from which the book takes its awkward title). But by and large, Blustein, a staff writer at the Washington Post, tells a cynic's tale of greed run amok on a massive scale.
While policy wonks at the International Monetary Fund had much to do with Argentina's implosion, Blustein also holds the country's own government responsible. Conventional wisdom says that the influence of the world's investors keeps everyone in line--a key tenet of the pro-globalization argument--but in practice, Blustein writes, "foreign funds numbed Argentine policymakers into minimizing the perils of their policies. The effect was similar to a dose of steroids, giving the economy a short-term boost while insidiously increasing the risk of a breakdown in the long run." From that point on, only devastation lay ahead for many average Argentineans, who could no longer remove savings from their banks, and for international investors, who saw their returns vanish in a flash. Blustein effectively makes the case that Argentina wasn't a rare example or a perfect storm of problems, but--bearing "striking parallels" to Enron and other financial scandals of the era--a preview of more meltdowns to come. It's a compelling cautionary tale well worth telling. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Paul Blustein, whose book about the IMF, The Chastening, was called "gripping, often frightening" by The Economist and lauded by the Wall Street Journal as "a superbly reported and skillfully woven story," now gets right inside Argentina's rise and fall in a dramatic account based on hundreds of interviews with top policymakers and financial market players as well as reams of internal documents. He shows how the IMF turned a blind eye to the vulnerabilities of its star pupil, and exposes the conduct of global financial market players in Argentina as redolent of the scandals — like those at Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing — that rocked Wall Street in recent years. By going behind the scenes of Argentina's debacle, Blustein shows with unmistakable clarity how sadly elusive the path of hope and progress remains to the great bulk of humanity still mired in poverty and underdevelopment.
Long After Midnight at the Niño Bien: A Yanquis Missteps in Argentina
by Brian Winter
from PublicAffairs
In a book that is part travelogue and part history, the author evokes his immersion in a dark underworld. He visits old dance salons, brothels, and shacks on the dusty Pampa, searching for the tango's shady origins in the hope that understanding may help him dance better. Along the way, he discovers that the tango, with its tales of jealousy, melodrama, and lost glory, may hold the secret to the country that is inexplicably disintegrating before his eyes.
Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Andreas Huyssen
from Stanford University Press
Focusing on the issue of monumentalization in divergent artistic and media practices, the book demonstrates that the transformation of spatial and temporal experience by memory politics is a major cultural effect of globalization.
Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number (The Americas)
by Jacobo Timerman
from University of Wisconsin Press
The Americas, Ilan Stavans, Series Editor
€ Winner of a 1982 Los Angeles Times Book Prize € Selected by the New York Times for "Books of the Century" With a new introduction by Ilan Stavans and a new foreword by Arthur Miller.
The History of Argentina (Palgrave Essential Histories)
by Daniel K. Lewis
from Palgrave Macmillan
The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina
by Alicia Partnoy
from Cleis Press
Natural Patagonia / Patagonia natural: Argentina & Chile
by Marcelo D. Beccaceci
from Pangaea
Legendary Patagonia, the southernmost region of the Americas, is shown in rich photographs by Argentine naturalist Marcelo Beccaceci. Written in Spanish and English throughout, the book takes readers on a panoramic journey through one of the world's most magnificent and varied landscapes, explaining its formation and the remarkable animals and flora that thrive in the rugged reaches of Argentina and Chile. From the snow-crested peaks of the Andes through arid Argentine steppe lands, deep into the Chilean fjords, the imagery astounds. Beccaceci's reverence for the native wildlife, the focus of his life's work as a conservationist, brings the intimate details of NATURAL PATAGONIA to an international audience. Written in Spanish-English bilingual parallel text and illustrated with 120 color photographs and two maps, the book is fully indexed and includes scientific names.
En español - Legendaria Patagonia, la región más austral de América, es desplegada en hermosas imágenes por el naturalista argentino Marcelo Beccaceci. Escrito en Español e Inglés, el libro lleva a los lectores a un viaje panorámico a través de uno de los paisajes más magnficos y variados del mundo, explicando su formación, y la notable fauna y flora que prospera en la agreste vastedad de Argentina y Chile. Desde los picos nevados de los Andes, a lo largo de la árida estepa y hasta los océanos Atlántico y PacÃfico, la visión asombra. La veneración de Beccaceci por la vida silvestre nativa, esencia de su trabajo como conservacionista, pone al alcance de un público internacional detalles ntimos de la Patagonia. Incluida 120 fotgrafÃas a color, 2 mapas, nombres cientÃficos, y Ãndice.
A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture (Oxford World's Classics)
by Marguerite Feitlowitz
from Oxford University Press, USA
Argentina still struggles as a nation with the shame and horror of the so-called "dirty-war" of the decade following Juan Peron's death. During that horrific time, torture and kidnapping were the instruments of choice for the enforcement of political will. Feitlowitz unflinchingly examines life under sadistic military rule with detailed descriptions of the experiences of prisoners in concentration camps. The Argentinean vocabulary now includes words like desaparacido (disappeared person) and chupado (sucked up or kidnapped), vivid reminders of how commonplace kidnapping and murder became. Victims, often guilty only of nothing more than practicing psychology or journalism or being Jewish, have not been forgotten.
Though Feitlowitz touches on the linguistic effects of government terrorism in Argentina, her book's greatest strength lies in the voice it gives the victims. The author spent years talking to survivors of the terror as well as some of the people responsible for instigating it. What A Lexicon of Terror does particularly well is capture the ongoing consequences of the dirty war--victims encountering their tormentors on the streets, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo still marching to remind their government that the fates of thousands of disappeared are still not known, a government held hostage by the fear of army uprisings should any attempt to bring culprits to justice be made. Argentina is the subject of this particular Lexicon, but surely the citizens of other nations such as Chile, Guatemala, and El Salvador might see their own experiences mirrored here.
"We were all out in la charca, and there they were, coming over the ridge, a battalion ready for war, against a schoolhut full of children." Tanks roaring over farmlands, pregnant mothers tortured, their babies stolen and sold on the black market, homes raided in the dead of night, ordinary
citizens kidnapped and never seen again--such were the horrors of Argentina's Dirty War. Now, in A Lexicon of Terror, Marguerite Feitlowitz fully exposes the nightmare of sadism, paranoia, and deception the military dictatorship unleashed on the Argentine people, a nightmare that would claim
over 30,000 civilians from 1976 to 1983 and whose leaders were recently issued warrants by a Spanish court for the crime of genocide. Feitlowitz explores the perversion of language under state terrorism, both as it's used to conceal and confuse ("The Parliament must be disbanded to rejuvenate
democracy") and to domesticate torture and murder. Thus, citizens kidnapped and held in secret concentration camps were "disappeared"; torture was referred to as "intensive therapy"; prisoners thrown alive from airplanes over the ocean were called "fish food." Based on six years of research and
moving interviews with peasants, intellectuals, activists, and bystanders, A Lexicon of Terror examines the full impact of this catastrophic period from its inception to the present, in which former torturers, having been pardoned and released from prison, live side by side with those they tortured.
Passionately written and impossible to put down, Feitlowitz shows us both the horror of the war and the heroism of those who resisted and survived--their courage, their endurance, their eloquent refusal to be dehumanized in the face of torments even Dante could not have imagined.
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