January 8, 2013

Let's begin with Hipólito Yrigoyen.

The Radical:



The Radicals took over in 1916, after years of conservative power, in the first election after the beginning of universal male suffrage in...



... Argentina, our "History of" country today. Wikipedia's History of page for Argentina is way too long for me even to consider summarizing. I feel as weary as Hipólito Yrigoyen looks in that picture. And the information looks too much like a list of all the many people who have held the leadership position in Argentina. So I'm afraid I must skip arbitrarily over all of this to find 5 things that seem interesting to me.

1. "Europeans first arrived in the region with the 1502 voyage of Amerigo Vespucci."

2. "The United Kingdom officially recognized Argentine independence in 1825, with the signing of a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation on February 2..."

3. "During the early 1920s, the rise of the anarchist movement, fueled by the arrival of recent emigres and deportees from Europe, spawned a new generation of left-wing activism in Argentina. The new left, mostly anarchists and anarcho-communists, rejected the incremental progressivism of the old Radical and Socialist elements in Argentina in favor of immediate action."

5. "In 1946 General Juan Perón became president; his populist ideology became known as peronism. His popular wife Eva Perón played a leading political role until her death in 1952."

6. "In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Marxist-Leninist militias such as People's Revolutionary Army utilized aggressive tactics that sometimes resulted in violence. Later the military government used these acts as justification for their even more brutal measures.... Serious economic problems, mounting charges of corruption, public discontent and, finally, the country's 1982 defeat by the United Kingdom in the Falklands War following Argentina's unsuccessful attempt to seize the Falkland Islands all combined to discredit the Argentine military regime."

18 comments:

chickelit said...

Argentina was named and mined for its silver. The influx of silver into European coinage is traceable using silver isotopes: link

Michael K said...

There is a series of novels by WEB Griffin, who is a very well know writer about military subjects, that is an easy, sort of cliff notes version, of Argentine history. The plot begins in 1943 when a Marine pilot is sent to Buenos Ares to meet his father who is an influential Argentine. The OSS is behind the assignment. Griffin's novels about the WWII Marine Corps and the Army aviation early days are very popular and known for accurate details.

F said...

We really ought to read Argentina's history: our appears to duplicating theirs. Argentina was once as rich a country as the USA. I suspect people will some day say about us: "the USA was once even richer than Russia (or China or India or - Argentina)."

SteveR said...

I know people who have lived there and they all were enthusiastic about its beauty.

Otherwise I think its a place of periods of massive inflation.

Sydney said...

What always surprises me about Argentinians is their ethnic diversity. I know a man from Argentina with an Italian last name. His grandfather emigrated there, just as my husband's grandfather emigrated here. His wife used to get a kick out of going to Mexico and fooling the women in the markets. She looked very European and they would try to cheat her and say disparaging things about her in Spanish to one another then she would start lashing into them in Spanish herself.

edutcher said...

Most people know Madge, er..., Evita, Nazis, and the Falklands as far as Argentina is concerned.

One great line about the country is God is 'splaining to the Devil what a wonderful place it is and the Devil says, "You make it sound like Heaven on Earth.", and God answers, "No, I'm going to populate it with Argentinians".

YoungHegelian said...

The Brazilians say that a good deal is to buy an Argentinean for what everyone else thinks he's worth & sell him for what he thinks he's worth.

Clearly, Argentinians are seen as a bit full of themselves down South America way.

In the 1910's economic predictors had Argentina having a larger economy than Germany by 1935. Never happened, needless to say.

Phil 314 said...

Did we do two today or was the Kardashian post not about Armenia?

yashu said...

Volver

Phil 314 said...

I love this Argentinian movie for the dancing and the music

Phil 314 said...

Por una cabeza

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Did we do two today or was the Kardashian post not about Armenia?

Yea Althouse... the last thing we need is for you to fall, bump your head and get a blood clot... sidelining your globe trotting ways.

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

I know a Welsh lady whose family lives in Argentina with a good sized family wealth. She complains about how hard it is to get any money moved out of Argentina.

gerry said...

I know a man from Argentina with an Italian last name.

There is an Argentine-Italian restaurant in Cincinnati. I'll have to go eat there now.

BarrySanders20 said...

No discussion about Argentina is complete without including Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, both Argentinian, and perhaps the two best soccer players ever. Few in the states know or care, but the rest of the world does.

Speaking of the Italian-Argentinian merger, Messi's grandfather immigrated to Argentina from Italy.

suestew said...

Jorge Luis Borges - nuff said.

Mitch H. said...

Most of what I know about Argentina was from an essay or two in this book. It covers the topics mentioned above - Argentina's early promise and wealth, and how in a certain light, they were our Latin American doppelganger.

Except not so much, mainly because of how they let themselves become an economic monoculture, strictly resource-driven as a breadbasket and so forth.

Oh, btw: Peronism is a species of fascism, nationalistic socialism. They did a lot of damage to their economy by seceding from the global market, and indulging in protectionist nostrums.