the falkland islands/malvinas: the contest for empire in the south atlanticby barry gough

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The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlantic by Barry Gough Review by: Jack Child The Americas, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Oct., 1994), pp. 279-281 Published by: Academy of American Franciscan History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1007949 . Accessed: 25/08/2013 20:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Academy of American Franciscan History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Americas. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 20:18:00 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlanticby Barry Gough

The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlantic by Barry GoughReview by: Jack ChildThe Americas, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Oct., 1994), pp. 279-281Published by: Academy of American Franciscan HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1007949 .

Accessed: 25/08/2013 20:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Academy of American Franciscan History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Americas.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 20:18:00 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlanticby Barry Gough

BOOK REVIEWS 279

government eradication efforts. While few of the Pampa migrants are described as becoming involved in lucrative coca paste and cocaine processing, the most suc- cessful entered profitable exchange arrangements with intermediaries for the drug dealers.

Emphasizing changes arising from the "coca boom," Sanabria focuses on the growth of social inequality among the Pampefios and adverse economic effects in their community. A minority of peasants who gained new wealth displayed it by the elaborate remodeling of their homes, the sponsorship of expensive festivities and the purchase of vehicles, especially trucks. As his detailed statistical tables indicate, concentration on coca investment in the Chapare withdrew financial and human resources from the production of potatoes and other highland staples in Cocha- bamba. The decline of such essential agriculture and the free market policies Bolivia has pursued since 1985 have contributed to worsening living conditions among the highland peasantry. Nor have United States-endorsed eradication and crop substi- tution projects either curtailed or given impetus to restoring the highland agricultural economy. Although several migrants who were paid to relinquish their holdings in the Chapare used such capital to enter various commercial ventures in Pampa, others voluntarily deserted their old and often disease-infested shrubs to invest in new coca fields elsewhere in the eastern lowlands. Simultaneously, regional peasant associations have organized resistance against the repressive actions of the national narcotics police and the military rather than promoting the recovery of highland agriculture.

Students of the Andean region will especially welcome this informative and timely addition to the scholarly literature on Bolivia. Analysts of United States assistance programs in Latin America and those concerned with the development of contemporary peasant societies will find Sanabria's conclusions provocative.

Loyola University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois

JOSEPH A. GAGLIANO

The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlantic. By Barry Gough. (Atlantic Highlands: The Athlone Press, 1992. Pp. xi, 212. Notes. Sources. Bibliography. Index. $65.00.)

A dozen years ago, to the surprise and consternation of almost everyone, Ar- gentina and Great Britain went to war over a handful of islands in the distant South Atlantic that supported a population of barely 2,000 humans (and approximately one hundred sheep for each human). Very quickly a barrage of popular writings, re- publications of arcane legal treatises, and instant talking-head specialists began to illuminate the non-specialist on the intricacies of a dispute between these two countries that goes back to the seventeenth century and that involved the United States to a surprising degree. Few authors of this outpouring of literature and

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Page 3: The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlanticby Barry Gough

280 BOOK REVIEWS

commentary made much pretense to be objective and balanced. From the Argentine side there were rehashes of seemingly endless lists of juridical fine points supporting the argument that the islands were originally Spanish, had passed to Argentina on independence in 1810, and were stolen by the British in 1833. The British position argued that ancient historical arguments were of lesser importance than 150 years of decent democratic self-rule under the British Crown, whose continuance was fer- vently desired by practically all the 2,000 inhabitants of the islands, who wanted nothing to do with a dictatorial and brutal military regime in Buenos Aires. A few observers of the scene noted that the dispute was less about islanders and sheep than about geopolitics and prospects for oil in the area, as well as the relationship to competing British, Argentine (and Chilean) claims in Antarctica.

Barry Gough's recent book on the Falklands/Malvinas dispute (appropriately subtitled "The Contest for Empire in the South Atlantic") provides a very readable and reasonably objective attempt to focus on the historical roots of the dispute, and to link it to the larger issues of struggles for influence in the often neglected area surrounding the southern tip of the Western Hemisphere.

The author (or perhaps more likely, the publisher) makes the ambitious claim on the jacket that the book "is the first to give a balanced treatment of the claims of the British and Argentine governments over those islands known variously as the Falklands or Malvinas." Readers familiar with the work of Gustafson (1988), Norman (1986-93), Bernhardson (1989), Smith (1991), or Gamba-Stonehouse/ Freedman (1991) might argue with that claim, although any attempt at balance in these slippery peat-bogs is commendable.

British readers will probably find the book too much inclined towards the Ar- gentine position, especially when the author makes statements such as "The Ar- gentine claim to the Malvinas before 1833 is irrefutable in terms of actual occupa- tion" (p. 155). The same British readers will not take much comfort in the next two sentences: "However, history shows no charity. For conquest in 1833 by Britain has been called a reassertion of British power." These three sentences encapsulate much of the book's theme: that the early Argentine claim is indeed stronger than the British, but that in the nineteenth century Argentina had no choice but to bow to superior British power (supported by the United States). The same ideas provide a fairly accurate summary of what happened in the 1982 war. The author has managed to locate a number of expressions of British doubt about their claim to the islands, such as a key one by the Duke of Wellington in 1829: "it is not clear to me that we have ever possessed the sovereignty of all these islands .. ." To British readers the author's condemnation of British (as well as U.S.) arrogance and high-handed attitude toward Argentina might further confirm an Argentine bias.

However, the apparent inclination toward Argentine views probably stems not so much from a scholarly bias as from the reality that the author is stressing the early history of the islands, which does favor Argentine claims, and does provide many instances of high-handed British attitudes and willingness to use blatantly military

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 20:18:00 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 4: The Falkland Islands/Malvinas: The Contest for Empire in the South Atlanticby Barry Gough

BOOK REVIEWS 281

means to achieve their national objectives. Nor do the Americans come across as defenders of the Monroe Doctrine in 1833; instead they are portrayed as more interested in free access to the islands and the surrounding waters so that New England sealers and whalers would not be hampered by Argentine attempts to exercise control over profitable fishing and hunting grounds. The book, in fact, provides one of the best presentations of U.S. motives in the nineteenth-century side of the dispute that this reviewer has seen. One key figure in the early-nineteenth century history of the islands is that of the Argentine Governor Louis Vernet, who is generally portrayed by British and U.S. writers as little more than an opportunist and stooge of the Buenos Aires government. Gough, in considerable contrast, presents Vernet as a cultured and sensitive man who had the best interests of the Island's fragile ecology and development at heart.

Another of the book's strengths is its emphasis on the geopolitical significance of the Islands, especially their location at the mouth of the Strait of Magellan and the Drake Passage, which were key naval choke points in the age of sail. Equally interesting is the author's frequent linking of the Islands to the overlapping sover- eignty claims of Argentina and Great Britain to that portion of Antarctica which has long been associated with South America and the islands of the far South Atlantic.

One must fault the author, however, for his almost complete reliance on British primary documentary sources. The few Argentine documentary sources were ones found in British archives. Secondary sources are also primarily British. There are also a disconcerting number of typographical errors, including numerous ones when Spanish or Argentine names are mentioned. The book could also profit from a concise chronological table and maps, which would make the location of key sites clear. (A map with significant places and dates identified and linked, such as the one found in the March 1988 issue of the National Geographic, would be ideal). The only two maps in the book are poor black-and-white reproductions of cartograph- ically beautiful hand-tinted early twentieth century maps. Their inadequate repro- duction has cost us both the esthetic and utilitarian function that a good map might have provided. Finally, the hefty price tag ($65.00 for 159 pages of text in eight chapters) will discourage many a purchaser.

These negative points should not detract from the fact that this is a useful, enjoyable, and helpful book that provides a different perspective than most of the literature on the subject. This review is being finished while at sea between Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina) and the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas, and for a cruise ship lecturer who all too often faces a strong pro-British bias in his audiences (to say nothing of views held by the Kelpers and British authorities on the Islands), it is welcome ammunition in the battle to provide an objective perspective on this centuries-old conflict, which on more than one occasion has led to violence.

American University Washington, D.C.

JACK CHILD

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Sun, 25 Aug 2013 20:18:00 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions