The Argentine revolution of 1890 had a very real effect on the subsequent development of national polities and history. Unlike many a successful revolution that set national development back, this unsuccessful one opened the door to the future. Even in failure it helped to create the Unión Cívica Radical and to begin a democratic evolution for Argentina. And though the government broke the revolution, the weak and corrupt president and those who stood with him were renounced and extirpated from public life. With them went many of the old philosophies and much of the power base of the old oligarchy.
Hence an analytical study of the events leading up to the Noventa and the evolution of institutions and philosophies evolving from it would be a fascinating and useful exercise in historical scholarship. This book does not succeed in that aim. It is a small book. Too large a portion of it is dedicated to earlier Argentine history and to the world scene. The author comments that much of the documentation is still unavailable, held in family libraries. His materials are largely books previously published on the same topic, and those are numerous enough to make another slim volume unnecessary.
Thus the usefulness of the book is limited. It provides a detailed accounting of the military activities of the revolt and a few interesting prints of the participants reproduced from the Archivo Gráfico de la Nación.
