328 BOOK REVIEWS

The Radicals in this early period did not follow their famous electoral strategy of
abstention, but they competed in elections with some success in both the capital and
the Province of Buenos Aires. However, the party collapsed and in 1897 dissolved
after the suicide of its first leader, Leandro Alem, and quarrels between other impor-
tant figures over strategy and power. Alonso is careful to stress that her arguments
cover only this first period but as she points out, this epoch is crucial in establish-
ing the mystique of Radicalism.

The only real weakness of the book is the lack of attention to the regions away
from Buenos Aires (city and province) but that is more than overshadowed by the
book’s many strengths. The reader also longs for the author to carry the analysis
through at least the beginning of the rebuilding of the party by Yrigoyen. This com-
plaint is unfair and just demonstrates the importance of the book. One wants to know
more. Alonso has given us a truly important book. We will never be able to see the
founding of the Radical Party and the history of the 1890s in the same way again.

Saint Bonaventure University JOEL HOROWITZ

Saint Bonaventure, New York

Children of Facundo: Caudillo and Gaucho Insurgency During the Argentine State-
Formation Process (La Rioja, 1853-1870). By Ariel de la Fuente. Durham: Duke
University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii, 249. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
$54.95 cloth; $18.95 paper.

This work combines approaches used by social, political, and cultural historians
to delve into a nuanced analysis of the competing leaderships, diverse constituen-
cies, and strategies of resistance and military occupation during the Argentine age
of post-constitutional discord, 1853-1870. After the fall of Juan Manuel de Rosas in
1852 and the writing of a national constitution the following year, Argentines
remained divided over the nature of the relationship between the peoples of the inte-
rior provinces and Buenos Aires, the wealthiest and most populous. The independ-
ence movement had given birth to two military offspring: first, the campaigns aimed
at freedom from Spain, which involved external conflicts (the result of exporting the
revolution to neighboring regions, including Alto Peru, Paraguay, Chile, and Peru)
and internal dissension, and, second, the rebellions that resulted from failed con-
sensus over the role and extent of government and especially of Buenos Aires in
matters of decision-making and economic development plans.

Children of Facundo is fundamentally a study of the relationship between lead-

ers and their followers, between caudillos and gauchos, in a rural setting. Caudillo
rule has been a historical problematic occupying the energies of both historical
actors and scholars. For Domingo Sarmiento, caudillos typified the despotism of
Oriental societies. Tulio Halperín Donghi argued from a social system perspective
that caudillismo was the consequence of the institutional crisis resulting from three
sources: the wars for independence, the militarization of society, and the ruraliza-
tion of political authority. For John Lynch, caudillos represented the defense of the
 BOOK REVIEWS 329

elites’ interests and their own stakes in the country’s interior. In this thesis, the
power of the caudillos rested on their discipline of rootless and marginal folk and
on the transformation of the elites’ peons into political followers. Other analysts,
such as Robert Kern and José Luis Romero, have emphasized cultural aspects in
seeing caudillos as representative of the creole and Hispanic heritage of the major-
ity of rural dwellers in opposition to the urban, modernizing, and liberal elites.
Ariel de la Fuente contributes to these discussions by arguing two principal
points. First, that caudillos can be understood by the political, material and cultural
nexus between followers and leaders. Caudillo-follower relationships developed, in
the process of mobilization, into party allegiances which were public and explicit,
all in the context of socio-economic conditions and political culture. Second, de la
Fuente argues on behalf of agency on the part of the Argentine masses, particularly
the rural folk: “Unitarism and Federalism were highly differentiated party identities,
with precise connotations and meanings, which occupied important places in the
experiences of rural dwellers. They were fundamental in orienting people politi-
cally, and it was the character of those identities that accounted for the consistency
and commitment that rebels exhibited . . . in their political affiliations” (p. 7).
This book takes on a couple of important and influential notions regarding the
nature and composition of the caudillos’ followers. First, de la Fuente places the
durable nature of civil conflict in La Rioja in the context of a minimalist economic
system: the dearth of provincial resources gave considerable opportunities to indi-
viduals of limited material substance to occupy leadership positions. Modest
estancieros and even more modest gauchos could ignite conflicts against central
authorities (and their proxies) with relative ease, confident of a following consist-
ing of men whose motivations drew from a deep reservoir of historical resentment
against Buenos Aires. At the end of the 1850s, La Rioja’s provincial budget aver-
aged 20,000 pesos, compared to Buenos Aires’ nearly four million pesos. In the
absence of resources, social control could not be effectively exercised by the state.
In the event, attitudes hardened: provincial ineffectiveness in dealing with rebellious
movements would lead to military interventions by Buenos Aires, which, in turn,
raised federalist animus only to lead to toughened measures by the national army
occupiers. In the process of this major cultural disconnect, the principal mode of
engagement was reduced to the linear simplicity of repression. In 1863, President
Mitre instructs Domingo Sarmiento, who was administering the war in the interior,
not to treat La Rioja and its rebels as actors in a war, but rather as common crimi-
nals: “In La Rioja, I want a police war. La Rioja is a den of thieves. . . . Declare the
montoneros thieves, without doing them the honor of considering them members of
a political party, not flattering their pillaging with the name of rebellion” (p. 166).
The Buenos Aires authorities further aggravated the province’s internal divisions
through a system of clientelism aimed at the local elites that favored loyalty over
any other personal or professional attributes. Yet, de la Fuente informs us that the
montoneras consisted neither of criminals nor of military professionals. Rather than
categorizing their movement as rural banditry, he sees it as political involvement,
dispersed rather than hegemonized by elites. Further, allegiance to one party or
330 BOOK REVIEWS

another was determined by personal experience and not ideological frameworks.

Thus, weak party loyalty also facilitated conflicts insofar as they could be detonated
at any time. Whether conflicts were caused by systemic issues or occasioned by per-
sonal grievances, the consequences were similarly dangerous for social and politi-
cal stability. Finally, in exploring the nexus between leaders and followers, de la
Fuente notes that party inconsistency was likelier among urban elites, while rural
caudillos maintained their clientelistic affiliations from within their own circles.

A second important contribution by de la Fuente rests on his analysis of the lim-

itations that James C. Scott’s model offers in explaining mechanisms for construct-
ing states and national identities. The illiteracy in La Rioja was widespread, as it
was for much of Latin America. In addition to the traditional historical data, de la
Fuente mined rich records of the oral culture of riojanos who had lived during this
period and related their stories as late as the 1920s. From such sources, it is clear
that gauchos owed their sense of allegiance to a their version of the state and to their
own experiences rather than to the printed media, as was typical of both the edu-
cated masses and the elites emphasized by Scott. Songs, folk tales and other popu-
lar forms of cultural transmission prolonged rural dwellers’ resilience and strength-
ened their allegiance and sense of identity. In sum, de la Fuente addresses the
question that has long been unasked among the seemingly endless consumers of
Scott’s basic principles: how does one explain identity among constituents of set-
tings in which education, formal institutions and printed media were largely absent?

Florida International University MARK D. SZUCHMAN

Miami, Florida

Sociabilidad en Buenos Aires: Hombres, honor y cafés, 1862-1910. By Sandra

Gayol. Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Signo, 2000. Pp. 284. Illustrations. Notes.
Bibliography. No price.

Claims to Parisian status abound all over the world. Havana was often called the
“Paris of the Caribbean;” Guatemala City, that of Central America; Beirut, that of
the Middle East; Bangkok, that of East Asia; and proud, or Francophile, Argentines
have long referred to their capital as the “Paris of the South.” A dispassionate
observer, however, would probably agree, at least in physical appearance, that the
last claim holds the most water. The temperate climate is similar, so are the boule-
vards and architectural styles, the store facades, even the sidewalk tiles. Another
common trait—and this one is both physical and cultural—is the omnipresent café.
While studies of Paris’s cafés seem as numerous as the coffee bars themselves, they
are much less common in the París austral.

The book under review here, originally, and perhaps appropriately—a Parisian
dissertation, is not the first on these ubiquitous porteño institutions. But it is the
most scholarly and methodologically ambitious. Relying on police daily reports for
a downtown district and for the Italian neighborhood of La Boca, and on summaries
of trial verdicts, the author constructed a database with information on 1,114 inci-