For nerds
The latest video from Un mundo inmenso takes us on a quick tour through utopian social theory, with mentions of Plato, More, Bellamy, and Nozick …
… as a prelude to discussion of a homegrown work, Arjirópolis or Argirópolis (1850) by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the author of Facundo.
Sarmiento wrote a lot of things. Even so, I’m a little shocked that I hadn’t heard of this book. I’m especially shocked that there’s no mention of it in the best English edition of Facundo.
I’m not shocked that Argirópolis wasn’t translated until recently, or that the translation’s price is $70. But there’s no fee attached to the Spanish original, in which Sarmiento uses utopian spelling (Arjentina, Uruguai, fewer accent marks, i rather than y, etc., etc.).
To call this book “utopian” is a bit misleading. A utopia is a no-place, or a no-place-in-particular, but the new country is precisely situated: it’s a confederation formed from Paraguay, Uruguay, and river-adjacent parts of Argentina, with a new capital on an island in the Río de la Plata. As in Facundo, the local geography determines the politics; the new land subscribes to no replicable political philosophy, though certain countries (e.g., the USA) serve as its models.
This is perhaps one of the more prescient “utopian” works, anticipating and even recommending the subservient role that Latin American countries would assume in global trade. Sarmiento is said to have been a Latin American apologist for neoliberalism well ahead of his time. To assess whether this is fair, I’d have to read the book.
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If the world had only twenty countries of roughly equal surface area, what would they be?, Un mundo inmenso asks in another recent video.
So: the channel has turned to counterfactual speculation. I hope it isn’t running out of things from actuality to discuss. This is an immense world, after all.
… as a prelude to discussion of a homegrown work, Arjirópolis or Argirópolis (1850) by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the author of Facundo.
Sarmiento wrote a lot of things. Even so, I’m a little shocked that I hadn’t heard of this book. I’m especially shocked that there’s no mention of it in the best English edition of Facundo.
I’m not shocked that Argirópolis wasn’t translated until recently, or that the translation’s price is $70. But there’s no fee attached to the Spanish original, in which Sarmiento uses utopian spelling (Arjentina, Uruguai, fewer accent marks, i rather than y, etc., etc.).
To call this book “utopian” is a bit misleading. A utopia is a no-place, or a no-place-in-particular, but the new country is precisely situated: it’s a confederation formed from Paraguay, Uruguay, and river-adjacent parts of Argentina, with a new capital on an island in the Río de la Plata. As in Facundo, the local geography determines the politics; the new land subscribes to no replicable political philosophy, though certain countries (e.g., the USA) serve as its models.
This is perhaps one of the more prescient “utopian” works, anticipating and even recommending the subservient role that Latin American countries would assume in global trade. Sarmiento is said to have been a Latin American apologist for neoliberalism well ahead of his time. To assess whether this is fair, I’d have to read the book.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
If the world had only twenty countries of roughly equal surface area, what would they be?, Un mundo inmenso asks in another recent video.
So: the channel has turned to counterfactual speculation. I hope it isn’t running out of things from actuality to discuss. This is an immense world, after all.