Argentina: The Land of History and Mystery, Book Review Example

Argentina is known to the world today as one of the most powerful and economically stabled nations around the globe. It standing has made it a specifically attractive destination for international investors. Currently ranking as the top three sources of overall GDP earnings in the Latin American region, Argentina receives so much praise and criticism as to how it was able to bring about change into its society and its people considering the massive history that it has gone through in the past. With Peronism as one of the most effective forms of political systems used in the country, such path towards progress was not that hard to accomplish. However, as I read through the lines of the assigned reading, I realized one thing, no glory comes from any easy history. The lives of the people who were sacrificed through time made Argentina’s past a picture of how people tend to embrace progressivism at the instance of loosing lives of the ordinary ones as mere lost cost for the sake of the society’s development. Sad, but true, these indicative situations that enveloped Argentina were critical in the building of a new and stronger nation that it has become at present.

Nevertheless, through the work of Marguerite Feitlowitz entitled A Lexicon of Terror, she presents some of the most compelling expose’s that characterizes the whole history of Argentina from its point of political chaos to the reception of the principles of democracy in the said nation. Being able to live in the country, she was able to get first hand information from the people she wanted to involve in her research making her writing a specific picture of the ‘then and now’ comparison of the old and new Argentina that the world knows of today.

In the first lines of her writing in chapter one, she notes: “Argentina is supremely enigmatic… it is described as schizophrenic and surreal”(4). Why was the description of Argentina seemingly represent a dark indication of what its history implies? Relatively, Argentina did pass through a dark era that consistently involved political chaos among parties and specific economic competition among most corporations which specifically subjected the society to division of classes based on their living status. Up to these days, some of those individuals who have lost their relatives during the said era in Argentina continue to commemorate the thoughts of lost lives who seemingly ‘disappeared’ in the middle of chaotic situations. Even though Argentina’s international appeal to people today is seemingly expansive especially in relation to how it is able to withstand economic and political challenges, its history will always mark the hearts of its people practically giving them a chance to realize particular situations that could teach them more about how they are supposed to handle the present and even then future of their nation and their people.

Overall, it could be noted how Feitlowitz tried to unravel the past of Argentina and how that particular approach provided a brighter indication on what happened before, bringing them into a situation that the people are dealing with at present. Most likely, the condition of living that enveloped Argentina in the past is noted by the author as the most compelling part of the life of the people that allowed them to grow into a society that knows more about political chaos, and have become wise enough not to let events of the past happen again. With focus on the people, Feitlowitz gave them the voice that they were never given during the times when they were oppressed. Relatively, other countries may have suffered the same specific fate in the hands of their own people, yet like Argentina, other nations also chose to rise to the occasion rather than putting themselves in a situation that questions their integrity and their personal desire for peace, security and social balance.