My review of this book was rather delayed by the global pandemic and I apologise for that. I had been looking forward to seeing this book in publication since I learned that it was being written some years ago. It does not disappoint. This is a major piece of work by one of the most-cited, most-read and most-respected historians of Argentina. It is original, of broad scope, and is based on a lot of original primary research and on the revision of a mass of secondary literature.
This is the first major work on the history of the British in Argentina in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, building on and refining earlier works from William Spence Robertson (A History of Argentina, 2011) to H. S. Ferns (Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century, 1960), and giving a further Argentina-focused depth to Rory Miller's Britain and Latin America (1993). There are no comparable works on the British in other individual Latin American countries, and this work will no doubt provide a reference point and comparative model for the brave souls who make subsequent attempts elsewhere. David Rock is able to make a success of this book because he combines empathy for the protagonists of the story with rich understanding of the intricacies and complexities of Argentine politics and economics. The long runs of several surviving English-language newspapers produced in Argentina are an important source that are not replicated in many places, for example.
Although the author likes a good historical narrative where appropriate it is never anecdotal and always rooted in the historiography, and usually draws from primary and secondary sources produced in Argentina. A lot of value is given to the accounts of interpretations of British diplomatic and consular representatives – perhaps a little more than I would have preferred – but it is understandable because of the copious documentation and the closeness to the British communities being studied. The focus is on the Anglo-Argentine settler communities, and though there are interesting discussions of Welsh, Scottish and Irish groups, in large part the overall interpretation follows a loose equation of Anglo, English and British. Nor is this is a study of mutual influence between Britain and Argentina – the Anglophilia of Jorge Luis Borges, for example, gets just a couple of mentions.
The book proceeds in a fashion that is at once both broadly chronological and thematic. Hence the first chapter on soldiers and merchants in the independence period segues into discussion of diplomats, settlers and travellers in the immediate post-colonial years. Moving through the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth century there are separate chapters on ranchers and shepherds, bankers and investors, and employees and educators. All of these chapters are rich, detailed and illustrated with the personal stories of the men and women in Argentina who identified with Britain. The final third of the book deals with the disintegration of what some have called the British ‘informal empire’ in Argentina, and the rise of anti-British nationalism. The final chapter on Britain and Juan Perón, a tour-de-force of manipulation, strategising and political analysis, is followed by a hopeful epilogue imagining possible recalibration of a bilateral diplomatic relationship that was shattered by the Malvinas/Falklands conflict. The book ends with the testimonies of the descendants of British settlers, who talk with fondness about their dual, multifaced identities and whose attachments to language, place and history go beyond the forced divisions of putative nation-states.
The book is crammed with surprising and compelling evidence. There is some fantastic detail on the schools linked to British communities, which tend to be remembered for their adoption and promotion of football. For example Alexander Watson Hutton (1853–1936) was not only a soccer promoter and the energy behind the all-conquering Alumni football team, but also the builder of the first school swimming pool in Buenos Aires and responsible for constructing the country's first tennis court for girls only. Rock also has an eye for the less celebrated figures, such as William Case Morris, the founder in 1898 of the Escuelas Evangélicas Argentinas, a network of orphanages through which up to 70,000 children had passed by 1925. Given the shadow of military conflict that bookends the text (the British invasions of 1806–7, the Malvinas/Falklands in 1982), it is interesting to reflect on the great efforts made by Argentines of British origin to avoid military service in the land they made their home. (In 1906–7, as Rock reports, drawing on The Standard newspaper, Anglo-Argentines demanded the formation of segregated white battalions to avoid having to serve alongside Indigenous or mestizo soldiers.) By 1958 over 100 residents of Buenos Aires had been decorated with the Order of the British Empire (OBE), including one woman, the educator Winifred Brightman.
Overall, then, this splendid book provides an essential historical bedrock for any serious contemplation of the establishment of British communities outside of the formal empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also provides a kaleidoscope of the human stories that made up much of the affective relationship between Britain and Argentina, and can be dipped into with great reward by the curious reader. It raises and leaves unanswered many questions, such as the longer-term consequences of community action around sports, culture, banking or military service. The author's intention is to provide readers with the tools and materials to answer these questions, and they are very well served by his efforts.
