José Carlos Chiaramonte was undoubtedly one of the most outstanding Argentine historians of the twentieth century. Born on December 3, 1931, in Arroyo Seco, Santa Fe Province, he spent his childhood in this small countryside town, surrounded by cultivated fields and open land. At age ten his father died, and the family moved to live with his grandmother in Rosario, where he finished his elementary and secondary education at the Escuela Normal Mariano Moreno. After graduating as a maestro normal, he taught at this school for about ten years.
In 1949 he entered the Universidad Nacional del Litoral's Rosario campus, where initially he studied history and philosophy. He eventually decided to concentrate in the latter. After obtaining his professor of philosophy degree in 1956, he taught at the university's Paraná campus a course titled History of Argentine Thought and Culture. Moving frequently between Rosario and Paraná, he befriended painters—Leónidas...