Abstract

Corradi's book is a detailed account of modernization in Argentina. There has been considerable urbanization and industrialization. There is a highly organized work force and a large educated middle class. Yet, Argentina is not all that different from other Latin American countries, and remains a peripheral capitalist society characterized by “dependency, stagnation, political decay and violence” (p. 2). Although Corradi does not indulge in theoretical debates, his insistence on the analysis of the conscious subjects who have made Argentinian history challanges all linear theories of development, including Wallerstein's world system perspective since it assumes a mechanical hierarchy of economic growth in different regions of the world.