Facundo: Or, Civilization and Barbarism

By Domingo F. Sarmiento, Ilan Stavans and Mary Peabody Mann

Ostensibly a biography of the gaucho barbarian Juan Facundo Quiroga, Facundo is also a complex, passionate work of history, sociology, and political commentary, and Latin America's most important essay of the nineteenth century. It is a study of the Argentine character, a prescription for the modernization of Latin America, and a protest against the tyranny of the government of Juan Manuel de Rosas (1835–1852). The book brings nineteenth-century Latin American history to life even as it raises questions still being debated today—questions regarding the "civilized" city versus the "barbaric" countryside, the treatment of indigenous and African populations, and the classically liberal plan of modernization. Facundo’s celebrated and frequently anthologized portraits of Quiroga and other colorful characters give readers an exhilarating sense of Argentine culture in the making.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Oct 1, 1998
• ISBN: 9781101190678

Domingo F. Sarmiento

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and the author or editor of numerous books.

Reviews for Facundo

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

a nineteenth Century novel by a man who was president of the Argentine Republic for a while. The main character is reasonably well drawn, though not very attractive to modern tastes, and the action is pretty good. Very Spanish in its morality and style. The original was printed in 1831.

[keylawk · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Written in exile and published originally by installments in 1845 in Chile, "Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie" is a work of great literary and historical significance for Argentina and all of post-colonial Latin America, by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. The author was a forensic writer and journalist who became the seventh president of Argentina. Sarmiento describes the isolated lawless feudalistic estates of the Argentine interior in political opposition to the educated progressive trade-based prosperity of Buenos Aires. This is the dichotomy between barbarism and civilization. "Facundo" is a historical figure who rose up from the pampas of the gaucho as a fighter. The values of the frontier tended to favor those who wielded absolute power. The ignorant but tough gaucho and the caudillos who command their obedience, regarded law as an insufferable interference with their "rights". The progressive Unitarians sought to introduce education and their central government interference with the feudal powers of the countryside were brutally opposed by a succession of dictators. Facundo himself was eventually assassinated by the caudillo Rosas, on whose behalf he had fought the Unitarians.