David Rock is to be thanked for this book. For any student of twentieth-century Argentina, one of the most mind-boggling issues is the persistence of reactionary nationalism. Its various incarnations and mutations, as well as its unsettling influence on generations of historians, have made this variant of nationalism a difficult subject to tackle with any coherence. David Rock balances the dual tasks of teasing out the main lineages of doctrine and paying close attention to shifts in response to conjunctural change. He does this, moreover, without lapsing into righteous condemnation. That he leaves for the reader.
Rock sets up two main, interrelated objectives: first, to explore the origins and persistence of reactionary nationalism when it appeared to have receded in Europe after World War II (its recent revival notwithstanding); and second, to account for its failure to become a mainstream force despite short flareups during military regimes (1930, 1955, 1966, and 1976-83). The two objectives are related because nationalism, never reaching mainstream influence, remained adaptable to changing international trends and newly emerging political actors.
It is hard to provide a short summary of Rock’s complex findings. Reactionary nationalism emerged in response to late nineteenth-century modernization—immigration, curbs on clerical control of education, and popular suffrage. Nationalists harked back to a colonial (and preferably Hapsburg) heritage of organic totality and hierarchical order. Specializing in union-bashing and clandestine organization, the Nationalists won their first opportunity to influence government during the short-lived regime of General Uriburu (1930-32), but failed to galvanize a solid movement akin to Italian, Spanish, or German fundamentalism. Rock attributes this failure to the Nationalists’ endemic fissiparous tendencies and to their naked elitism, which foiled any efforts to create a popular following. These remained their principal weaknesses.
Rock proceeds to discuss the difficult relations between the Nationalists and Perón. If Perón’s early career (1943-45) owed much to his embrace of Nationalist ideas, his ascendancy required him to jettison them. In jockeying for power, Perón turned to trade unionists. Abhorring this populist turn, Nationalists joined Perón’s opposition, supporting his ouster in 1955 (despite signs that Perón himself was willing to restore his Nationalist pedigree). Thereafter, Nationalists and Peronists followed a complex and contradictory pattern of convergence and mutual suspicion.
Rock deftly negotiates the mosaic of groups, from rightwing Catholic fundamentalists to leftwing guerrillas, whose contribution to the destruction of democratic rule culminated in the 1976-83 Proceso de Reorganización Nacional. The dictatorship was the Nationalists’ moment of triumph, but it exemplified all of their limitations. Rock ends his book by describing the current state of affairs, emphasizing the degree to which Nationalists have folded into the rightwing military adventurism of the carapintadas.
This book should be required reading for students of nationalism and the Latin American Right. It is well written and argued, carefully balancing close historical detail with broad genealogy. No book, however, can do everything. If there is one absence, it is the gendered aspect of nationalism—a feature emphasized in the recent work of Donna Guy and Sandra McGee Deutsch. Rock describes, but seldom elaborates, how strident fundamentalism alluded to paternalistic and deeply male-centered notions of order and hierarchy. In spite of this, readers will find in Rock’s book a useful, engaging, and ultimately saddening account of one of the most lamentable forces in recent Argentine history.
