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Optimism and Melancholy: Elite Response to the fin de siècle bonaerense

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

JEFFREY D. NEEDELL
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Florida

Abstract

This study explores the ideological response of Argentina's Generación del Ochenta to the ‘modernisation’ over which they presided. It begins with a brief analysis of the political role of the Generación, the urban reform of Buenos Aires, and the socio-economic developments associated with both. It goes on to discuss the nature of the elite, the socialisation of its members, and the informal networks central to its role. It concludes by discussing the role of ideology in elite domination, particularly in response to perceived threats associated with the nation's dramatic changes, focussing upon the writing of the Generación's exemplar, Miguel Cané.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This study derives partly from earlier research encouraged by Richard M. Morse and profiting from the advice of Tulio Halperín Donghi. Funding for that research was provided by a Danforth Fellowship and by Novella C. Belden, and was facilitated by the staff and holdings of Doe Library at the University of California, Berkeley. The present publication would not have been undertaken or possible without the encouragement of Stephanie Bower; her advice and that of other members of a LASA panel (Guadalajara, 1997) on Buenos Aires – Paula Alonso, James Baer, Karen Mead, David Rock, and Richard Walter – helped provide crucial guidance to me as I returned to explore porteño history in their intellectual company.