Read Book Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture

Facundo

Diana Sorensen Goodrich, Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture, University of Texas Press, Copyright 1996, 230 pages. ISBN 0292727909.

This paper reviews, analyzes, evaluates and critiques the book Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture, by Sorensen Goodrich. This book itself presents an in-depth analysis of the book Facundo or Civilization and Barbarism by Domingo E. Sarmiento, which is a classic text, a book that is said to be the great liberalist text of the 19th century.

Sarmiento's book traces the turbulent personal history of Rosas, which is used as an allegory of the turbulent history of Argentina, all the while arguing from a liberal perspective, of the many and varied benefits of freedom and democracy. Often, throughout Sarmiento's Facundo, this argument for democracy in Argentina is argued most forcibly by letting the barbarism of Facundo speak for itself. Through the quite detailed chronicles of the bloody political and military adventures of Facundo, Sarmiento retells the story of Rosas, and draws for us, his readers, the picture of what it was like in post-Independence Argentina, of what it was like to live without democracy, to live in fear of a dictator. Sarmiento's book therefore opened up a debate for it's readers, which has continued to the present day: what is the nature of Argentine culture?

Sorensen Goodrich's book takes this debate from Sarmiento's Facundo as a starting point, and gathers together the various interpretations of Sarmiento's work, going through these interpretations piece by piece throughout the book.

Sorensen Goodrich's book is described by reviewers as a learned analysis of Sarmiento's text, and is said to be without competition in this field, for its depth and execution of analysis. In Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture, Sorensen Goodrich's main thesis is that the various interpretations and readings of Sarmiento's classic text have themselves actually led to the development, and remaking, of Argentine culture.

Through this thesis, Sorensen Goodrich throws new light on the connection between canon formation, and on ideas of nationhood and nation building. This is where the book is particularly strong, and particularly valuable as a way into to the canon of literature connected to this research field: indeed, this is the first book to have located the Sarmiento's classic Facundo in the realm of canon formation and nation-building, and for this achievement, Sorensen Goodrich is rightly praised in academic circles.

Through the book, Sorensen Goodrich highlights the historical, and continuing, connections between institutional behavior, and patterns of this behavior, and between cultural ideology and political life. She makes the point that a nation is built by its leading figures, but also that opportunities within and between countries are also shaped by people's impressions of those countries, such that nation-building is as much about perceptions of the needs for change, and the effects of change, by the country itself and by other countries that interact with the country in question, as it is about the actual changes themselves, such that change can happen without any real assessment of the value of the change, or the impact of the change on the nation or on the nation's relations with other countries.

The book is well planned, and extremely well organized, in that it takes a logical stepwise run through the main issues, which are many and varied, and which are written from many and varied viewpoints. The book is also extremely well written, in a very clear and concise manner, and Sorensen Goodrich can be praised for her achievement in this regard. Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture is a very easy book to read, even for a non-specialist in this field. In terms of the academic worth of the book, as has been said before, reviewers have found this book extremely interesting, and have rated the book highly. The book is also valuable for students, in that it poses a well-written, challenging, presentation of many interesting ideas.