A New Economic History of Argentina (review)
This is an important book, rich in ideas and data. It will be welcomed by scholars engaged in the study of the economics and political economy of long-run development, and by specialists struggling to explain the Argentinian conundrum — how a society that was one of the wealthiest in the world “lost its way.” A New Economic History is “new” because it updates and extends the pioneering, if idiosyncratic, collection by Carlos F. Díaz Alejandro (Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic [1970]), and because it applies a novel approach to the analysis of Argentine history. The editors are to be commended for encouraging contributors to combine the traditional techniques of the historian—descriptive narrative based on archival work, shaped by analytical insights—with the use of theoretical models and quantitative methods. While this combination works better in some areas than others, the overall result is to demonstrate how profoundly macroeconomic performance inter-connects with political structure and cultural mores.