The Great Transformation: The Expansion of the State and the Market in Argentina (1852–1912)

This chapter analyzes the debates and alternatives for the construction of a unified state after the fall of Juan Manuel de Rosas and the path that the liberal elites and the Porteño leadership took to achieve hegemony. In exploring these topics, the text also analyzes the Paraguayan War and the territorial consolidation of Argentina through the violent incorporation of lands previously in the hands of indigenous peoples in Patagonia and the Chaco who had until then remained free. In addition, it outlines the process of constructing a national market and establishing a state apparatus, in conjunction with the adoption of an economic model focused on the export of food products to Europe. The dramatic social and economic changes are analyzed in connection with the political closure that accompanied them and the emergence of an oppositional workers’ movement and popular culture.