Acknowledgments xiii

General Introduction 1

I. At the Margins of the Empire 15

The Deeds of Elal / Anonymous 19

Going Wild / Ulderico Schmidt 23

Monsters in Patagonia / Antonio Pigafetta 27

Women Captives / Ruy Diaz de Guzman 30

The Jesuit Mission / Father Strobel 34

A Gaucho Sings the Victories of the Empire / Juan Baltasar Maciel 38

The First British Invasion / Mariquita Sanchez de Thompson 40

II. To Build a Nation 43

The Revolution / Tulio Halperin Donghi 47

The Landowners' Petition / Mariano Moreno 66

The Good Citizen / Jose de San Martin 71

Women in the Fatherland / Juana Manuela Gorriti 73

The Caudillo's Order / Juan Manuel de Rosas 75

Civilization or Barbarism? / Domingo Faustino Sarmiento 80

Rosas and Washington / Pedro de Angelis 91

The Black Girl / Anonymous 93

Immigration as a Means of Progress / Juan Bautista Alberdi 95

III. Frontiers 103

The Slaughterhouse / Esteban Echeverria 107

Wars of Extermination / Charles Darwin 115

The Triple Alliance / Captain Francisco Seeber 119

One Hundred Leagues of Trench / Alfred Ebelot 126

Gauchos in and out of the State / Jose Hernandez 133

An Expedition to the Ranquel Indians / Lucio V. Mansilla 146

Letter to the President / Chief Manuel Namuncura 154

IV. Splendor and Fin de Siecle 157

The Foundation of the National State / David Vinas 161

The Paris of South America / James Scobie 170

The Modern Crowd / Jose Maria Ramos Mejia 182

Making It in America / Oreste Sola 188

The Jewish Gauchos / Alberto Gerchunoff 193

The Birth of Tango / Simon Collier 196

Bourgeois Snakes / Jose Ingenieros 203

Argentina as Latin American Avant-Garde / Ruben Dario 206

National Identity in a Cosmopolitan Society / Leopoldo Lugones 209

V. Modern Times 215

Simon Radowitzky / Osvaldo Bayer 219

The Union Civica Radical / David Rock 231

Poems to Be Read on a Trolley Car / Oliverio Girondo 251

Modern Women / Alfonsina Storni 254

X-Ray of the Pampa / Ezequiel Martinez Estrada 259

Soccer and Popular Joy / Roberto Arlt 263

Cambalache / Enrique Santos Discepolo 266

VI. Populism and New Nationalism 269

Peron and the People / Daniel James 273

Saint Evita / Tomas Eloy Martinez 296

Ramona's Revenge / Lino Palacio 304

Funes, the Memorious / Jorge Luis Borges 306

Victorian Fathers / Victoria Ocampo 313

The Foreign Gaze / Witold Gombrowicz 319

Village on the River / Juan L. Ortiz 324

House Taken Over / Julio Cortazar 328

Operation Massacre / Rodlfo Walsh 333

VII. Revolutionary Dreams 341

The Latin American Revolution according to "Che" / Ernesto "Che" Guevara 345

Are We All Neurotic? / Anonymous 352

Tucuman Is Burning / Maria Teresa Gramuglio and Nicolas Rosa 358

The Cordobazo / Agustin Tosco 364

The Words of Silence / Alejandra Pizarnik 372

The Muleteer / Atahualpa Yupanqui 375

Montoneros: Soldiers of Peron / Richard Gillespie 377

Antirevolutionary Peronism / Juan Domingo Peron 386

VIII. State Violence 395

Modernization and Military Coups / Guillermo O'Donnell 399

Artificial Respiration / Ricardo Piglia 421

The Madwomen at the Plaza de Mayo / Hebe de Bonafini and Matilde Sanchez 429

Never Again / National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons 440

Still Harboring / Juan Gelman 448

In a State of Memory / Tununa Mercado 450

Corpses / Nestor Perlongher 457

War in the South Atlantic / Graciela Speranza and Fernando Cittadini 465

IX. Democracy and Neoliberalism 473

Teaching the Republic / Raul Alfonsin 477

Living with Inflation / Osvaldo Soriano 481

Menem: A New Style in Politics / Vicente Palermo and Marcos Novaro 487

The Journalist as the People's Detective / Horacio Gonzalez 495

Roadblocks, Detours, and Crossroads / Rodolfo Rabanal 500

X. Argentina in the Age of Globalization: New Citizenships and the Politics of Memory 505

We Are All Cursed / Javier Auyero 509

Soccer and Masculinity / Eduardo Archetti 519

Amerindian Rights / State Law of Indigenous Rights 525

Feminist Awakenings / Marcela Nari 528

The Children of Death / Maria Moreno and Marta Dillon 538

Active Memory / Laura Ginsberg 544

Infinity / Cesar Aira 549

Postmodern Forgetfulness / Beatriz Sarlo 553

Suggestions for Further Readings 557

Acknowledgment of Copyrights 565

Index 571