"¡Vamos a Avanzar!" Topic

"In 1932, Bolivia and Paraguay went to war over dry, sparsely populated territories in the Chaco region of South America. Three years of fighting had wide-ranging consequences. National consciousness developed among Bolivia's disparate peoples and the war increased the importance of public opinion in political life. One postwar rallying cry of veterans, ¡Vamos a avanzar! ("Let's move forward!"), expressed their desire for reformist modernization.

Robert Niebuhr has written a book about social and political transformations in Bolivia with a focus on the period between 1920 and 1940. He argues that the country's political elite, however inept or venal, created a modern nation-state during the first half of the twentieth century. For Niebuhr, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement's ascension to power in 1952, as well as Evo Morales' Movement for Socialism in the twenty-first century represent "more a continuation of past policies and increased connectivity with global trends than a dramatic transformation and shift from the past."[1] Niebuhr's case for this periodization is convincing. Economic changes from early in the century irrevocably altered Bolivian political dynamics. Although most workers did not vote in elections or read newspapers, parties and politicians could not govern with the support of a tiny middle class alone. They increasingly had to acknowledge the social and even economic and political power of miners, students, and urban workers who might go on strike or react violently to breaking news. Peasants, for their part, could desert the army. These reasons, among others, moved the country's political discourse towards populist rhetoric. The book, it should be noted, is not about the proximate causes, operations, or central figures of the Chaco War (1932-1935), the last large-scale inter-state military conflict in South American history, but rather the war's relationship to social and political transformations already underway…"

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Armand

My wife wants to visit Bolivia one day, for some unknown reason…

Damon.

Not recomended…

Armand