Responding to the favorable reception of his popular history magazine, Todo es Historia, and following in the historiographical tradition of Vicente Fidel López, the editor of the Memorial de la Patria series, Félix Luna, presents these volumes not as replacements for more academic studies of Argentine history, but as popular works designed to retain a high degree of scholastic quality.
Miguel Angel Scenna admirably fulfills this goal in this the first volume of the series. Presenting a well-written chronological narrative of the six years preceding Argentine independence, he intricately weaves the careers of Rafael de Sobremonte, Martín de Alzaga, Cornelio de Saavedra, Santiago de Liniers and Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros with regional and international events to support two basic themes. Martín de Alzaga, who twice rescued Linier’s career, represented a republican form of junta establishment in advance of his peers and should be recognized as a significant precursor to the events of May 25, 1810. Secondly, the author asserts that the impact of peninsular events and the preponderance of Spanish political concepts must be kept in the foreground for a clear understanding of Argentine independence: “The only republicanism that occurred on this side was that of the juntas, as in Spain, and from roots profoundly Spanish” (p. 234). With this volume, the Memorial de la Patria series is off to a sound beginning.
