Synopses & Reviews
In January 1944, an earthquake reduced the province of San Juan, Argentina, to rubble, leaving perhaps ten thousand dead and one hundred thousand homeless. In The Ruins of the New Argentina, Mark A. Healey argues that the disaster and the massive rebuilding project that followed transformed not only the province but also the nation. The earthquake was a shattering and galvanizing experience, an indictment of the old social order and an invitation to transform it. From the nationandrsquo;s capital, an obscure colonel in a recently installed military regime launched a relief campaign and rapidly commissioned plans to rebuild the province, especially its capital city. The campaign was a rousing success, launching the public career of its director, Juan Domingo Perandoacute;n, who would soon found a movement, reach the presidency, and transform the politics and social structure of the country. Dreaming and building the new city became the landmark project for a generation of modernist architects and planners, as well as an enduring challenge and controversy for local residents and the Peronist state. By exploring the struggle to rebuild, Healey shows how this destroyed province played a crucial role in forging, testing, and ultimately limiting the Peronist project of transforming the nation.
Review
andldquo;The Ruins of the New Argentina is the best introduction that I know of to the baffling political movement that continues to rule Argentina after six decades full of sound and fury. Mark A. Healey makes sense of the Peronist revolution that transformed Argentina by considering it from the perspective of a provincial capital devastated by an earthquake during the formative years of Peronism. Healeyandrsquo;s counterintuitive approach pays off, yielding a fascinating account populated by a curious mix of reformist soldiers, provincial strongmen, labor activists, and modernist architects.andrdquo;andmdash;Tulio Halperandiacute;n Donghi, author of The Contemporary History of Latin America
Review
andldquo;Through the lens of the San Juan earthquake and the reconstruction efforts that followed, Mark A. Healey offers us a meticulously researched, rigorously argued, and beautifully written political and cultural history of modern Argentina. This tour de force teaches us new ways of thinking about Peronism, regional populist experiences, the interaction of national and local politics, and the sociopolitical dynamics produced by disasters.andrdquo;andmdash;Javier Auyero, author of Poor Peopleandrsquo;s Politics: Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of Evita
Review
andldquo;This is a book that will appeal to historians (and not only to urban historians), urban designers and architects, geographers, urban planners and political scientists. Healey uses the events surrounding this earthquake to recount a fresh story of the origins of Peronism. In doing so, the book paints a picture that will appeal to many scholars in a number of disciplines. . . . Mark Healey has done an excellent job in reconstructing this key moment in Argentinaandrsquo;s history and in showing Peronism on the move.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Healey provides an integrated perspective that builds on recent work on disasters and makes important contributions to Argentine historiography and the history of urbanism and planning.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Healeyandrsquo;s book joins a historiography that has moved the study of Peronism away from the traditional focus on Buenos Aires and the labor movement. In line with current scholarship that has criticized the idea of andldquo;natural disastersandrdquo; by focusing on their social, political, and cultural consequences, Healey innovatively looks at the San Juan earthquake as a crucible that sheds light on the emergence of Peronism, changes in local power, urban rebuilding, and the transformation of the fields of engineering and architecture.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Healeyandrsquo;s work is at once a tightly argued, well-sourced, and incredibly detailed account of mid-twentieth century San Juan and a nuanced and persuasive analysis of Peronist Argentina.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Healy deserves much praise for the many accomplishments of this bookandhellip;.What Healy masterfully underscores [andhellip;] is that the relation between the state and the provinces is a fundamental angle of analysis that deserves further attention. This book is an excellent example of the value of such an enterprise. It is also an innovative and creative contribution to the study of Peronism that ventures beyond traditional thematic and geographic perimeters.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;After reading this wonderful book, there is no doubt that historians will never think about this event, or the politics of natural disasters more broadly, in the same way againandhellip;. It stands as a model for how scholars should study the political and social history of natural disasters, and it deserves to become required reading for historians interested in any or all of its four central areas of enquiry.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Healey has given us a crucial study that allows us to see much more clearly what Peronism was and was not. For too long the interior provinces have been neglected, and with this extremely well-written book Healey has taken us several steps further down the road to understanding the founding era of Peronism and how it affected the lives of ordinary Argentines in ways that still matter.andquot;and#160;
Synopsis
Cultural history of the politics of rebuilding after a devastating 1944 Argentinean earthquake, linking the consequences of the disaster to the origins of Peronism.
Synopsis
A history explaining how Peronism emerged in relation to both the earthquake that devastated San Juan, Argentina, in 1944, and the massive rebuilding project that followed.
About the Author
Mark A. Healey is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the translator of Roger Bartraandrsquo;s Blood, Ink, and Culture: Miseries and Splendors of the Post-Mexican Condition, also published by Duke University Press.
Table of Contents
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Acronyms xv
Introduction 1
Part 1. Revelations Among the Ruins, Early 1944
1. andquot;Rooted Vines and Uprooted Menandquot;: The World Wine Made 25
2. In a Broken Place 51
3. andquot;The Measure of Our National Solidarityandquot;: The Aid Campaign and the Rise of Perand#243;n 66
Part 2. The Cornerstone of the New Argentina, Early 1944
4. Utopias in the Dust: Architects' Visions for the New City 87
5. The Superstition of Adobe and the Certainty of Concrete 106
6. Looking for Order Among the Ruins 124
Part 3. From Leading Case to Exemplary Failure, Mid-1944 to Mid-1946
7. Diverging Paths of Reform: Architects, Labor, and the Reconstruction Council 159
8. The Revolt of the Engineers: Protest and the Profession in 1945 183
9. andquot;San Juan is Still Waitingandquot;: Rebuilding and the Election of 1946 204
Part 4. andquot;Rubble or No Rubble, We Want Perand#243;n, 1946and#8211;1962
10. Against the andquot;Sovereignty of Expertsandquot;: Rebuilding on Local Terms, 1946and#8211;1947 225
11. andquot;The Pacification of Spiritsandquot;: Peronism in One Province, 1947and#8211;1955 238
12. The andquot;Bulldozer Kidandquot; and the Rebuilt City, 1955and#8211;1962 267
Final Reckonings 291
Appendix: Government Spending in San Juan 299
Notes 301
Bibliography 357
Index 379