This compelling book demonstrates the centrality of honor in the culture of Argentine elites in the late nineteenth century, and is the best effort so far to rescue honor and the concomitant practice of dueling from the historiographical neglect of Latin American historians. The sources mined by Gayol (press, private and public archives, literature) are particularly generous. It would be difficult to build such a detailed account for any other Latin American country; I know it would be impossible for Mexico. Argentine men wrote and read about dueling (there was a section in newspapers for the theme!) and in doing so documented the significance of honor in their lives. Based on the strong foundation of her previous work on forms of sociability in Buenos Aires, Gayol shows the role played by honor in codifying social difference but also providing a center of gravity for elite social life. Yet her study...

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