The Closing of the Argentine Mind

La Argentina y la tormenta del mundo. Ideas e ideologías entre 1930 y 1945 (Argentina and the World Storm: Ideas and Ideologies from 1930 to 1945) By Tulio Halperín Donghi 254 pages, Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI Editores Argentina, 2003 (in Spanish)

Argentina is in the throes of an intellectual crisis. A spectacular debt default in 2002, more than five years of recession, and continued political turmoil have not aroused Argentina's top thinkers and politicians from complacency. The current chaos mirrors the period between the First and Second World Wars, when Argentina faced a similar crisis of intellect and identity, as its economy and democracy crumbled. Fortunately, today's world poses fewer dangers than the interwar years. But that reality does not justify inaction by Argentina's intellectual elite, most of which is more concerned with achieving professional success and mindlessly rejecting globalization than with solving Argentina's enormous challenges.

In La Argentina y la tormenta del mundo (Argentina and the World Storm), historian Tulio Halperín Donghi has written a warning for today's Argentine intelligentsia. Ideological debate, Halperín Donghi demonstrates, has been central to Argentine politics since the rise of the Peronist political movement in the early and middle 20th century. Halperín ... // 83% Remaining