Argentina
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 August 2021
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 August 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0356
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 August 2021
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 August 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199730414-0356
Introduction
Argentina emerged as a nation-state in the latter half of the 19th century. However, both popular culture and the official history generally agree that Argentina’s origins lay in the break with Spain in 1810 or even earlier, during the colonial period. The Hispanic monarchy’s dominions in South America were governed by a viceroy based in Lima until the 18th century, when two new divisions were created: the viceroy of New Granada governed the northern half of the continent, and the viceroy of Río de la Plata governed the south. The latter, whose capital was Buenos Aires, included most of what would become Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. The early-19th-century crisis of the Spanish monarchy created the conditions for the establishment of various nation-states in South America. The viceroyalty of Río de la Plata disintegrated into small power units, and a series of civil wars broke out. Paraguay would be the first independent entity to emerge (1811), followed by Bolivia (1824) and Uruguay (1828). The rest of the fourteen states-provinces of the old viceroyalty continued fighting until 1862, at which point the Argentine Republic was created. The period starting in 1862 is referred to in Argentine national historiography as the period of “national organization,” during which the state gave substance to its sovereignty and institutions. Since the colonial period, agriculture had been the principal productive sector. Toward the end of the 19th century, cattle and grains became the principal and essentially the only exports, and the engine of its growth. Some areas of the country, most especially the city of Buenos Aires and the areas under its influence, underwent rapid demographic and economic growth, which gave Buenos Aires, the country’s major port, a disproportionate role in the territory as a whole, making it the country’s critical center. In the late 19th century, state construction coincided with an important series of transformations, including the forcible incorporation of Patagonia and Gran Chaco, which until then had been under the control of indigenous peoples (“Desert Campaign,” 1878–1885), the takeoff of agricultural exports, infrastructure construction (ports, railways, etc.), rapid urbanization, and, especially, the massive arrival of immigrants, most of them from Europe, who would play an active role throughout this transformative process.
General Overviews
The first two decades of the 21st century have featured mostly works of synthesis published, aimed at a general audience and concerning specific time periods (Fradkin and Garavaglia 2009, Fradkin and Garavaglia 2011, Gelman 2010, Sabato 2012), along with the monumental Suriano 2000–2005, which addresses all of Argentina’s history. For a long-term global vision from a more economic perspective, see Míguez 2008, Hora 2010, and Rapoport 2004. Lobato and Suriano 2000 provides an efficient graphic synthesis of events.
Fradkin, Raúl, and Juan Carlos Garavaglia. La Argentina colonial. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo XXI Editores Argentina, 2009.
A clear and concise account of Río de la Plata during the colonial period. The brief epilogue provides a sharp analysis of changes starting in May 1810 that eventually led to the end of colonial ties. It also questions the notion that these events can be termed “revolutionary.”
Fradkin, Raúl, and Juan Carlos Garavaglia, eds. Argentina: La construcción nacional. Vol. 2, 1830/1880. Colección América Latina en la Historia Contemporánea. Lima, Peru: Fundación Mapfre y Santillana Ediciones, 2011.
A concise compilation aimed at a general audience, synthesizing political history, the international context, and economic, social, and cultural aspects of the period.
Gelman, Jorge, ed. Argentina. Vol. 1, 1808–1830, crisis imperial e independencia. América Latina en la Historia Contemporánea 1. Lima, Peru: Fundación Mapfre y Santillana Editores Generales, 2010.
A nonscholarly work of synthesis aimed at a general audience. It provides new perspective on the essential aspects and events of a key period in Argentine history.
Hora, Roy. Historia económica de la Argentina en el siglo XIX. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo XXI Editores, 2010.
A precise and synthetic account of the reorientation of the economy of the old viceroyalty toward the exterior, and the development of agriculture that would lead to Argentina’s incorporation into the world economy.
Lobato, Mirta Zaida, and Juan Suriano. Nueva historia Argentina: Atlas histórico de la Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Sudamericana, 2000.
The historical evolution of Argentina through maps and brief explanations.
Míguez, Eduardo. Historia económica de la Argentina desde la Conquista a la crisis de 1930. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 2008.
Covers the period of greatest economic growth without relying on preconceived notions. A crucial work for understanding the present.
Rapoport, Mario. Historia económica, política y social de la Argentina, 1880–2000. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Editorial Macchi, 2004.
An easy-to-read didactic work that is well documented, analyzing the formation and transformations of the market and the national state from social, economic, and financial perspectives, always taking into account the international context.
Sabato, Hilda. Historia de la Argentina, 1852–1890. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Siglo XXI, 2012.
An impeccable historical summary that emphasizes the political perspective but also pays proper attention to social and economic questions. This work focuses on the projects that molded the state and the ways in which political authority was legitimized.
Suriano, Juan, ed. Nueva historia Argentina. 10 vols. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 2000–2005.
A ten-volume work covering all of Argentine history from the arrival of native peoples and the first conquerors up through the early 21st century.
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- Abolition of Slavery
- Abolitionism and Africa
- Africa and the Atlantic World
- African American Religions
- African Religion and Culture
- African Retailers and Small Artisans in the Atlantic World
- Age of Atlantic Revolutions, The
- Alexander von Humboldt and Transatlantic Studies
- America, Pre-Contact
- American Revolution, The
- Anti-Catholicism and Anti-Popery
- Argentina
- Army, British
- Arsenals
- Art and Artists
- Asia and the Americas and the Iberian Empires
- Atlantic Biographies
- Atlantic Creoles
- Atlantic History and Hemispheric History
- Atlantic Migration
- Atlantic New Orleans: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Atlantic Trade and the British Economy
- Atlantic Trade and the European Economy
- Bacon's Rebellion
- Baltic Sea
- Baptists
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- Barbary States
- Benguela
- Berbice in the Atlantic World
- Black Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
- Bolívar, Simón
- Borderlands
- Bourbon Reforms in the Spanish Atlantic, The
- Brazil
- Brazil and Africa
- Brazilian Independence
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- British Atlantic Architectures
- British Atlantic World
- Buenos Aires in the Atlantic World
- Cabato, Giovanni (John Cabot)
- Cannibalism
- Capitalism
- Captain John Smith
- Captivity
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- Captivity in North America
- Caribbean, The
- Cartier, Jacques
- Castas
- Catholicism
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- Central American Independence
- Central Europe and the Atlantic World
- Charleston
- Chartered Companies, British and Dutch
- Cherokee
- Childhood
- Chinese Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World
- Chocolate
- Church and Slavery
- Cities and Urbanization in Portuguese America
- Citizenship in the Atlantic World
- Class and Social Structure
- Climate
- Clothing
- Coastal/Coastwide Trade
- Cod in the Atlantic World
- Coffee
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- Colonial Governance in the Atlantic World
- Colonialism and Postcolonialism
- Colonization, Ideologies of
- Colonization of English America
- Communications in the Atlantic World
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- Confraternities
- Constitutions
- Continental America
- Cook, Captain James
- Cortes of Cádiz
- Cosmopolitanism
- Cotton
- Credit and Debt
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- Creolization
- Criminal Transportation in the Atlantic World
- Crowds in the Atlantic World
- Cuba
- Currency
- Death in the Atlantic World
- Demography of the Atlantic World
- Diaspora, Jewish
- Diaspora, The Acadian
- Disease in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Production and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Domestic Slave Trades in the Americas
- Dreams and Dreaming
- Dutch Atlantic World
- Dutch Brazil
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- Early Modern Amazonia
- Early Modern France
- Economy and Consumption in the Atlantic World
- Economy of British America, The
- Edwards, Jonathan
- Elites
- Emancipation
- Emotions
- Empire and State Formation
- Enlightenment, The
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- Ethnicity
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- Evangelicalism and Conversion
- Female Slave Owners
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- Forts, Fortresses, and Fortifications
- Founding Myths of the Americas
- France and Empire
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- France and the British Isles from 1640 to 1789
- Free People of Color
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- French Army and the Atlantic World, The
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- Gender in North America
- Gender in the Atlantic World
- Gender in the Caribbean
- George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax
- Georgia in the Atlantic World
- German Influences in America
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- Giovanni da Verrazzano, Explorer
- Glasgow
- Glorious Revolution
- Godparents and Godparenting
- Great Awakening
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- Hinterlands of the Atlantic World
- Histories and Historiographies of the Atlantic World
- Honor
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- Hunger and Food Shortages
- Iberian Atlantic World, 1600-1800
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- Iberian Inquisitions
- Idea of Atlantic History, The
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- Indentured Servitude
- Indentured Servitude in the Atlantic World, Indian
- India, The Atlantic Ocean and
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- Insurance
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- Ireland and the Atlantic World
- Iroquois (Haudenosaunee)
- Islam and the Atlantic World
- Itinerant Traders, Peddlers, and Hawkers
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- Jefferson, Thomas
- Jesuits
- Jews and Blacks
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- Language, State, and Empire
- Languages, Caribbean Creole
- Latin American Independence
- Law and Slavery
- Legal Culture
- Leisure in the British Atlantic World
- Letters and Letter Writing
- Lima
- Literature and Culture
- Literature of the British Caribbean
- Literature, Slavery and Colonization
- Liverpool in The Atlantic World 1500-1833
- Louverture, Toussaint
- Loyalism
- Lutherans
- Mahogany
- Manumission
- Maps in the Atlantic World
- Maritime Atlantic in the Age of Revolutions, The
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- Maroons and Marronage
- Marriage and Family in the Atlantic World
- Maryland
- Material Culture in the Atlantic World
- Material Culture of Slavery in the British Atlantic
- Medicine in the Atlantic World
- Mennonites
- Mental Disorder in the Atlantic World
- Mercantilism
- Merchants in the Atlantic World
- Merchants' Networks
- Mestizos
- Mexico
- Migrations and Diasporas
- Minas Gerais
- Miners
- Mining, Gold, and Silver
- Missionaries
- Missionaries, Native American
- Money and Banking in the Atlantic Economy
- Monroe, James
- Moravians
- Morris, Gouverneur
- Music and Music Making
- Napoléon Bonaparte and the Atlantic World
- Nation and Empire in Northern Atlantic History
- Nation, Nationhood, and Nationalism
- Native American Histories in North America
- Native American Networks
- Native American Religions
- Native Americans and Africans
- Native Americans and the American Revolution
- Native Americans and the Atlantic World
- Native Americans in Cities
- Native Americans in Europe
- Native North American Women
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- Natural History
- Networks for Migrations and Mobility
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- North Africa and the Atlantic World
- Northern New Spain
- Novel in the Age of Revolution, The
- Oceanic History
- Oceans
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- Papacy and the Atlantic World
- Paris
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- Peru
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- Plants
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- Portugal, Early Modern
- Portuguese Atlantic World
- Potosi
- Poverty in the Early Modern English Atlantic
- Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Voyages
- Pregnancy and Reproduction
- Print Culture in the British Atlantic
- Proprietary Colonies
- Protestantism
- Puritanism
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- Quilombos
- Race and Racism
- Race, The Idea of
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- Red Atlantic
- Refugees, Saint-Domingue
- Religion
- Religion and Colonization
- Religion in the British Civil Wars
- Religious Border-Crossing
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- Rio de Janeiro
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- Salvador da Bahia
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- Science, History of
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- Second-Hand Trade
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- Ships and Shipping
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- Silk
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- Slavery, Health, and Medicine
- Slavery in Africa
- Slavery in Brazil
- Slavery in British America
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- South Atlantic Creole Archipelagos
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- Spanish America After Independence, 1825-1900
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- Spanish Atlantic World
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- Technology, Inventing, and Patenting
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- The Fur Trade
- The Spanish Caribbean
- Theater
- Time(scapes) in the Atlantic World
- Tobacco
- Toleration in the Atlantic World
- Transatlantic Political Economy
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- Visual Art and Representation
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