This interesting volume stresses the familiar theme that the proud and optimistic Argentine “generation of eighty” built a modern nation by adhering to a code of order and progress. Noé Jitrik has devoted nearly one half of this study to a somewhat conventional analysis of the political, economic, social, and intellectual movements that transformed Argentina in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The remainder of the book is an anthology from the pens of Argentines of that generation with selections ranging from the apologetic resignation of President Miguel Juárez Celman to fragments from the novels of Eugenio Cambaceres.
The stated purpose of this volume is to give its readers an image of the generation that built modern Argentina. In his introductory essays and in his edited selections from the writers of that era, Jitrik has been moderately successful in achieving his goal. His analysis of nineteenth-century Argentine literary developments in this study reveals the special interest and talents of a professor of Argentine literature. Less originality is evident in his presentation of the political and economic world which surrounded “the generation of eighty.” Several well-chosen photographs of men and scenes from that era and an adequate bibliography contribute to the value of this work.
