I stumbled across this excellent essay by David Rock titled Racking Argentina that provides a solid background for understanding today’s current economic conditions in Argentina.
David Rock is the leading English-language historian of Argentina and his work always has an economic slant to it. While written in 2002 before the election of Kirchner, the article is still timely as David Rock puts the situation into a global context, explaining how economic conditions in various parts of the world impacted the Argentine economy. He also points out critical mistakes by the government: “During the Menem years, investment potential remained largely in the imagination of the president’s advertising team.”
December 6th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
Thank you for the article on Argentina by David Rock. The article covers the last century very well. Nicolas Shumway has a good book on the prior century, 1800s, The Invention of Argentina, from the California Press, 1991. He wrote it with the same mind, to look at the historical beginnings of the political and economic developments of the last half-century. My daughter is using Rock as a reference for a paper she is writing on debt relief in Argentina. Really worth the time. One of these days, I will quit my library job and come to Buenos Aires to live. Till then, I enjoy reading about it on your blog and talking to ex-pats in my town, New York City. I found your blog on http://alteredargentina.blogspot.com/.
Best regards, Suzi B.
December 8th, 2005 at 12:07 am
Suzi – glad you like the blog. The Shumway book you mention is really good. I need to write a post about it someday. It does a great job of covering the 19th century political history of Argentina.
Buenos Aires will be here wating for you!