El doctor José Barros Pazos en la patria y en el exilio (1808-1877)

Through painstaking research in family and public archives a granddaughter has restored one of the secondary figures of Argentina’s period of national organization to full historical splendor. After a Chilean exile in the 1840s, Barros Pazos returned to Buenos Aires to become director of schools, a post subsequently filled with more flamboyancy by Domingo F. Sarmiento, and rector of the university, also later occupied with more fame by Juan María Gutiérrez. Along with most of this post-Rosas generation he also had an active political career as delegate to the provincial conventions of 1854 and 1860 as minister of government under Valentín Alsina, as member of the Supreme Court in 1862 under Mitre’s presidency, and finally just before his death as president of that court. The writer has delved beneath the surface, however, to uncover in personal letters and papers the poems and anecdotes of the private man. In such a combination lies the strength of this excellent biography.