Argentina Books

The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron's Argentina. Uki Goni. New York: Granta Books, 2002, 382 pp. $29.95.

Reviewed by Kenneth Maxwell, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003

A chilling, detailed story of one of Argentina's most shameful secrets: the enthusiastic role of dictator Juan Peron in providing cover for major Nazi war criminals as the Third Reich collapsed, allowing them to lead prosperous and protected lives after the war. Few characters get off easily in this passionate account, which untangles the networks and escape mechanisms that made it all possible. Coming to Peron's assistance were numerous institutions and individuals: the Vatican, the Argentinean Catholic Church, the Argentinean government, and the Swiss authorities who cooperated through a secret office set up by Peron's agents in Bern. Operatives from Heinrich Himmler's secret service arrived in Madrid as early as 1944 to prepare an escape route; in 1946, this operation moved to Buenos Aires, establishing its headquarters in the presidential palace. Eventually, this operation's tentacles stretched from Scandinavia to Italy, aiding French and Belgian war criminals and bringing in gold that the Croatian state treasury had stolen from 600,000 Jewish and Serb victims of the Ustasha regime. Ingrained antisemitism, anticommunism, greed, and corruption all fortified these clandestine protection rackets. Today, the stain remains, as does the secrecy. This astonishing book delineates in gripping detail what was long suspected -- and also hints at how much remains to be told.

I was really interested in reading this book, honestly. But it is so poorly written that I gave up after 30 pages or so. I don't care if it's important stuff, true or whatever. If the writer can't get the job done of explaining it he should leave it to somebody else. It seems he just poured his notes from his journal on the paper in a chronological order, with no overall plan.

I give it a second star for the subject matter. If it was for the telling I'd want my money back.

A very interesting book. A subject by which I have always been fascinated.

The poems are, as expected, very nice and clever,
but the description of the book promises "songs",
and I had hoped for some musical notation. Instead,
it's just straight text. You could sing it if you
wanted to, I guess, and if you already knew a song
with these lyrics, the book would be worthwhile, but
none of the songs I remember from my childhood were
included. I returned the book.

Maria Elena Walsh is one of the most talented writter, song-writter around. I grew up with her songs and stories in Argentina and wanted to pass this on to my children. Although her music is difficult to find in the US, this book contains pretty much all the lyrics, so to those of you who remember a tune or a verse, here are the actual words! Wonderful.

"El arte de amar" (1956) afianzarían el prestigio logrado por el psicoanalista alemán Erich Fromm, sobre todo en ambientes universitarios. En estos textos escribiría acerca de su teoría del "amor maduro" como ingrediente para una realización individual que permitiera escapar a la enajenación producida por la sociedad de consumo o la omnipotencia del propio Estado. Se empeñaría en armonizar el marxismo y el psicoanálisis, al mismo tiempo que abrazaría en su pensamiento las aportaciones de Oriente, siendo fruto de esta reflexión su obra "Budismo zen y psicoanálisis".

Fromm nos regala un libro de una simplesa absoluta pero de una contundencia total. Muestra y justifica sus ideas de una forma maravilloa en el estilo literario y de la logica. Si se sabe leer muestra el mundo con una vision nueva pero tan ovia que no podemaos rechazar. El exito consiste en que no trata de demostrar sino solo muestra y deja que el lector tome su decisión. Es un libro que deja con ganas de mas y hace ir a buscar otros libros de Fromm tan pronto se lee la última linea.

Un libro excelente.
Solo los que apoyan la tortura y el asesinato indescriminado pueden decir que Videla no quizo el poder y que sus atrocidades fueron por amor a la Patria. Videla a sido sin ninguna duda uno de los asesinos mas grandes que ha tenido la historia mundial.

Buen libro sobre aquella época, desde un punto de vista totalmente de izquierdas. A pesar de ésto, a los escritores no les queda más remedio que reconocer que Videla no obtuvo ganancia personal del golpe, sino todo lo contrario. Lo hizo por amor a la patria; para defenderla de la agresión marxista. Los autores prácticamente no mencionan nada sobre el terrorismo de las izquierdas. Para los autores, los terroristas marxistas son siempre las víctimas inocentes, y Videla el malo de la historia. Hubiese sido conveniente explicar que el golpe de Videla fue una reacción al terrorismo marxista sobre la población, el asesinato de oficiales, y el desastroso gobierno de Isabel. Los autores concluyen que los juicios a Videla no hacen justicia a las víctimas marxistas por tener sentencias demasiado blandas. La realidad es totalmente otra: Videla se merece un monumento por salvar a la patria.

Every page of "The Naturalist in La Plata" is steeped in the sights,sounds and smells of nature. The tone of the writing is one of 19th century grace and charm. The author writes of his personal observations of the Argentine pampas,both the land and its life-forms. He was particularly interested in animal behavior, especially that of birds. Some of the stories about animals, such as the puma and the huanaco ,incorporate native legends as well as his own scientific speculations. Some topics covered include dancing rituals of certain birds,facts and thoughts about spiders, the graveyard of the huanacos, curious animal weapons and many more. The character of the pampas is also revealed as a backdrop to the animal anecdotes. There is no sensationalism or sentimentality, but rather a wonder and appreciation for nature as manifested in a particular landscape. I found it to be a pleasant excursion to an unfamiliar but fascinating territory.

In The Naturalist in La Plata, Hudson does a good job of blending scientific content with interesting stories, anecdotes, and other tidbits from his observations of the area. Hudson grew up in the Pampas, and the book illustrates his special affinity for the region. Additionally, he has a love for nature and a respect for its wonders. An early environmentalist, Hudson often laments man's destruction of nature in this volume, presenting wonderful arguments as to the value of convservation. I probably wouldn't recommend this as an easy leisure read, but it is a good example of naturalist writing. Hudson's stories and obvious admiration of nature keep the book from being too dry.

THIS BOOK I REALLY ENJOYED READING,IT REALLY CAPTIVATES YOU
I COULDNT PUT IT DOWN TILL I WAS DONE READING IT;
THE FORBIDDEN LOVE BETWEEN SOFIA AND SANTI IS VERY PASSIONATE,
UNFORTUNATELY FATE FORCED THEM APART...BUT THEIR LOVE
NEVER DIED...READ IT YOU WONT REGRET IT.

If you like melodrama, convoluted romance, South American telenovelas, and crying while reading stories, "Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree" is a novel for you. Santa Montefiore, who is half-Argentinian, but lives in Great Britain, managed to create a book full of clichés from popular soap operas from Latino television. Unfortunately, this is not what I expect from literature from that part of the world, so I was quite disappointed.

Sofia Solanas, the heroine of this novel, is a daughter of Paco Solanas, one of the four sons of the wealthy landowner Hector Solanas, who managed to create a heaven on Earth on his rancho, Santa Catalina, where all his children built their family homes. Paco met Sofia's mother, Anna Melody O'Dwyer, in London, and the two fell in love from the first minute they laid eyes on each other, Anna left her parents and her native Ireland and came to Argentina, where she gave birth to two sons and Sofia. The story of Paco and Anna is given in retrospective, as the core is Sofia's life starting in early 1970s, since she has been a little girl, a stubborn tomboy who loves playing polo, the favorite sport of the men in the area.

Unfortunately, Sofia is especially fond of her cousin, Santi, who likes her very much as well. When after his studies in the US Santi returns home, they give in to the forbidden love against all odds, and this leads to Sofia's exile and many sad years following.

Everything can be found in this book: love from the first sight, patient, waiting love, incest, physical abuse, marital unfaithfulness, betrayed friendship, illegitimate child, sliding into poverty, purely sexual affairs... Additionally, the author tries to provide a background of current events in Argentina (the death of Juan Peron, the military dictatorship) and to connect the characters with these events, which results in more drama (the exile of Fernando, Santi's brother, to Uruguay), but just adds to what is already too much. It is definitely overdone - sometimes, really, less is more. Besides, there are irritating explanations of obvious things, such as that the seasons in Argentina are shifted by half a year in comparison to England, or what mate is.

The language is very much like a school essay, with many sequences where the sentences do not follow the logic, or with complex sentences that are plainly wrong. It is, in literary categories, a mediocre text, which nevertheless can evoke emotions and is easy to read fast, but equally easy to forget.

Polly has written a complete account of her travels; unfortunately, she has done so with unspectacular prose. Consequently, biblio amnesia frequently descends, leaving you asking yourself, "What did I just read? Was it important?" I wanted to like this book, and I certainly don't hate it. I just wish I'd encountered some truly memorable prose that I could take with me from this experience. Polly has some unique insights--she just needs to find a way to make her prose as vivid and inspiring as her travels.

I've read Polly before and will continue to as long as she writes. Her books are like taking a class in geography and history; only it's a pleasure, not a pain. On a Hoof takes you through the beautiful countryside of Argentina. While telling you of her trials and tribulations, you also learn much about the country and how these people came to inhabit the land. Polly shares the beauty in her written word, and the country comes to life under her pen. It's a pity that these types of books aren't used in the classroom, where it makes it fun to learn about other countries and people.
by: Dodie Cross, author of A Broad Abroad in Thailand. www.dodiecross.com

The market reform process in Latin America over the past two decades has inspired any number of political and economic explanations concerning the motivations of politicians and policymakers for their change in attitude. Amidst an already crowded field, Kurt Weyland offers an intriguing account based not upon the underlying assumptions of political science, but instead upon experimental economics. His cognitive psychology-based prospect theory rests upon the willingness of actors to take risks depending upon the conditions of the status quo.

Weyland starts by carefully defining all competing explanatory approaches---rational choice, economic structuralism, and political institutionalism---as a prelude to their dismissal. Rational choice models, for example, come closest to challenging prospect theory; yet, while based on similar psychological micro-foundations, Weyland contends that these differ from prospect theory in that the former method posits that decisions are made according to that option which carries the highest expected value.
Prospect theory, in contrast, acknowledges that decision-makers do not always choose on these grounds alone.

As background, Weyland references the 1984 work of experimental economists Kahneman and Tversky, who constructed an S-shaped value curve that weighted expected value according to whether a respondent is experiencing gains or losses from the status quo. Their conclusion: decision-makers facing dire circumstances are more likely to take risks and make decisions that have lower expected values. For instance, if today is worse than yesterday, then respondents are more likely to take risks that could facilitate a return to "normalcy." Conversely, if today is better than yesterday, respondents are less prone to accept change. Thus, Weyland argues that rational choice assertions based upon expected utility fall short of a full explanation.

In conjunction with prospect theory, Weyland discusses the somewhat fuzzier notion of prior option bias. This holds that once an actor has made a decision, s/he is more likely to stay the course even if conditions have worsened as a result of it. New actors, on the other hand, are more predisposed to taking risks.

After establishing prospect theory's virtues, Weyland applies it to four Latin American cases---Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Venezuela---and argues that this regional focus helps to reduce the range of explanatory variables. First, all of these countries have deep cultural and historical similarities, which simplifies their comparison. Second, each was plagued by debt and hyperinflation to different degrees in the 1980's, but the threat of further economic deterioration was visible in each case.

Using hyperinflation as a gauge of gains or losses, Weyland shows that in the countries where politicians and the electorate perceived hardship, all were willing to take risks. Citizens took risks by withdrawing their support from established parties and throwing it behind little-known candidates. Politicians took risks by implementing sweeping market reforms. Politicians in all four countries used neopopulist rhetoric to convince their citizens of the need of such drastic reforms for "the good of the common man," as well as to distance themselves from entrenched political forces.

In Argentina and Peru, reforms brought enough people into the domain of gains that the presidents who enacted the plans were re-elected. However, once politicians and voters returned to a comfortable state, both were less willing to gamble on further reforms - even if economic policymakers declared deeper measures to be a necessary condition for future growth. In Brazil, the results of the reform package were not sufficient to bring large numbers of voters into the domain of gains, and President Collor was unable to garner support for additional reforms. Venezuela was unique in that the public's perception of economic strength was high to begin with. Thus, when President Andres Perez adopted the same draconian measures as his contemporaries, his plan was very unpopular. In each case, support was lacking for a continuation of reforms. Corruption, inefficiency, and trade barriers remained in place and hindered further economic development, but according to Weyland prospect theory can account for this by taking stock of the economic winners and losers.

In search of further validation of prospect theory, Weyland uses it to explain such historical phenomena as the rise of Nazism and Roosevelt's implementation of the New Deal. Although prospect theory seems relevant to the cases analyzed in the book, the difficulty of measuring a populace's perception of crisis limits its ability to forecast change. Nevertheless, Weyland does a masterful job of merging this well-established economic approach with comparative political economy and backing up his argument with a host of rich empirical evidence and historical examples.

A pessimistic view about the vulnerability of Latin American democracies confronting the need to adopt harsh economic reforms predicted that any attempt at adjustment would be blocked by the population in order to avoid its high costs or, in the worst scenario, a painful reform could generate massive protests that would undermine the regime. However, the cases of Argentina and Peru refuted those predictions of incompatibility between democracy and market reforms. This book explains under what circumstances it is possible to implement successful economic reforms without destabilizing fragile democratic institutions.
Weyland applies a novel and powerful cognitive-psychological theory to explain the behavior of both policy makers and the public regarding the macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment programs implemented in four Latin American countries during the late 1980s and 1990s. He uses prospect theory to frame this unconventional analysis of "adjustment politics". The most fundamental findings of this theory of decision-making are that individuals behave as risk-seekers when they face losses and, on the contrary, individuals avoid risk when they are situated in the domain of gains. By using an empirically supported theory of the "new behavioral economics", Weyland challenge rational choice scholars that explain decisions according to the less plausible assumptions of expected utility theory. The latter theory would predict very different outcomes in the countries under analysis, supporting the pessimistic view of incompatibility between democracy and market-oriented reforms.
The central argument of this book stresses the role of severe economic problems in triggering intrepid market reforms. The author's theoretical framework suggests that both political leaders and common citizens are more likely to accept risky measures when they share the perception that the national and household economies are trapped by a grave crisis (e.g. hyperinflation). As an implication, this micro-foundation for the "crisis argument" should also explain why in fragile democracies it is possible to put into practice tough economic reforms without regime damage. In fact, the author claims, it is the other way around: "by empowering the populace, the institution of democracy - in the context of severe crises - paved the way for market reform" (p. 283).
The book contains a case-oriented study that takes into account context factors. It is a synthetic effort based on extensive field research. The first three chapters are an introduction to the research question, a discussion about the rival theories, and a summary of the theoretical framework used for the description of the cases. These chapters are especially enjoyable for those who are interested in solving theoretical puzzles. Chapters four through eight are the core of the book. The author analyzes the political economy of the mid-1980s (i.e. "heterodox experiments"), and the reforms of the 1990s (i.e. "neoliberal adjustment") implemented by the new leaders - if not political outsiders - of the four countries. He also describes the peculiar combination of populist politics and free-market oriented reforms, and explains the causes of differential outcomes: the political failure of reforms in Brazil and Venezuela, and the political sustainability of liberalization in Peru and Argentina. In the final chapter the author summarizes the central findings: "chief executives succeeded in enacting a large part of the market reform program where both aspects of the crisis - conjunctural and structural problems - were acute and grave. By contrast, where conjunctural or structural problems were less severe, as in Venezuela and Brazil, respectively, neoliberalism ran into serious political difficulties" (p. 252).
Definitively, the main notions of prospect theory are very important to understand individual choice. The key idea about how individuals respond to crises is, as Weyland suggests at the end of the book, a powerful one that most be applied in depth in the fertile soil of comparative politics. The seminal work of Kahneman and Tversky (1979) showing how people manage risk and uncertainty was the beginning of an impressive research agenda in several economics domains (e.g. stock market, labor economics, saving and consumption, and insurance). Yet in political science, only the international relations subfield scholars have been exploring the applicability of prospect theory. Thus, Weyland's book is one of the first attempts to apply the recent cognitive-psychological findings in the field of comparative politics.
Paradoxically, a shortcoming of this book is its ineffective use of prospect theory. There is a lack of formal modeling to explain with parsimony and deductive rigor the payoffs and probabilities that the actors have faced during the decision-making process. Weyland affirms that precise information about payoffs and probabilities attached to different decision options is unavailable and he recognizes that this limitation makes difficult to prove the hypotheses. Additionally, there is not a systematic procedure to demonstrate whether a political leader was in the domain of losses when he decided to take a risky measure. There are descriptions that assume a specific position of the subjects along the value function, but these assumptions are based on the subjects' choices in a later moment. There are many arguments about the level of risk that different policy options had, but it still unclear which was the riskiest. Without numbers or algebra, the fundamental distinction between "more or less risk" is difficult to grasp. Certainly, it is harder to measure the political behavior of the President and the common citizen in order to show risk aversion than the economic behavior of a customer to prove the "asymmetric price elasticities of consumer goods" (Camerer 1998). However, some degree of formalization is desirable for the advancement of this approach in comparative politics. Precisely because "prospect-theory explanations rest on well-established empirical findings, not on unrealistic ideal-typical postulates," (p. 7) it is necessary to organize the historical facts and context factors according to previous experiments. At least, it is crucial to know whether the conditions that can be controlled during an experiment are present in the real world.
This provocative book will be useful for graduate students who have interest in political economy, especially as a complement to the abundant literature on economic reforms in Latin America.

Durante su primer baile de debutante en el palacio del gobernador, Alexa se encontro con Nicholas, un hombre arrogante y sinico que provoca en alexa una pasion implacable. Ella fue perseguida por hombres que buscaban su belleza, pero su alma esta poseida por el hombre cuya presencia la llevaba al extasis, cuya crueldad la atormentaba y cuya ternura la colmaba

Durante su primer baile de debutante en el palacio del gobernador, Alexa se encontro con Nicholas, un hombre arrogante y sinico que provoca en alexa una pasion implacable. Ella fue perseguida por hombres que buscaban su belleza, pero su alma esta poseida por el hombre cuya presencia la llevaba al extasis, cuya crueldad la atormentaba y cuya ternura la colmaba

Argentina has of course, yielded some of the greatest novelists and short story writers of this century. Alexander-Imbert may be a lesser figure in that pantheon, and he is possibly too much of a hybrid to be considered an unambiguously Latin American writer (he spent much of his life teaching in United States universities) but for my money he is more sublime than, say Bioy-Casares and his stories never dissapoint.

Argentina has of course, yielded some of the greatest novelists and short story writers of this century. Alexander-Imbert may be a lesser figure in that pantheon, and he is possibly too much of a hybrid to be considered an unambiguously Latin American writer (he spent much of his life teaching in United States universities) but for my money he is more sublime than, say Bioy-Casares and his stories never disappoint.