This thin volume appears in a collection dedicated to study the cardinal problems of the Hispanic world through specially written, low priced works directed to the mass audience. The claim to absolute impartiality is somewhat diluted by a list of authors largely composed of ardent Rosistas, Marxists, and Trotskyites.

Chávez builds his study around the well-worn theme of Alberdi’s persecution by the Mitristas. But he penetrates beyond the personal animosities and the articles of La Nación to unmask what he calls the false “Liberals” of the Río de la Plata. Guilty by association is the Argentine educational system which has obliterated the real Alberdi and left only the husks of Las bases and El crimen de la guerra, acceptable even to the Mitres. In a documented and well-written sketch of Alberdi’s life, Chávez succeeds in reviving some of these forgotten writings. Particularly stimulating is the final chapter which reproduces Alberdi’s most pungent paragraphs from his Escritos póstumas—the verbal dissection of “Mitre, Sarmiento y comparsa.”