num_pages: 258
description: Buenos Aires Argentina recognized for its European-style architecture and lively theater scene is a truly special place. The second-largest city in South America it has been the home of such renowned cultural and historical figures as Jorge Luis Borges and Astor Piazzola Che Guevara and Eva Peron. Like every truly great city New York London and Prague; Buenos Aires is its own universe with its own center of gravity its own scents and flavors its own architectural signature-in short its own way of being. From San Telmo's oak-paneled restaurants and brightly tiled apothecaries from 1900 and the phantasmagoric Beaux Arts palaces along Avenida Alvear and Plaza San Martin to the parks of Palermo and the bustling bars and cafes along Corrientes and LaValle Buenos Aires is steeped in exotic culture and history.In Buenos Aires Art and culture critic James Gardner offers a colorful biography of the Paris of the South from its origins and time as a colonial city through its Golden age the rise of Peron and the Falklands War to the present day. With entertaining asides about art architecture literature food and dance as well as local customs and colorful personalities this is a rich and unique historical narrative of Buenos Aires.Table of contentsPrefaceIntroduction: Buenos Aires as Center of the Universe1. Civilization or Barbarism: The Geography of Buenos Aires2. The Founding of Buenos Aires (1492-1541)3. The Colonial City (1542-1776)4. Buenos Aires Capital of the Viceroyalty (1776-1810)5. Independence (1806-1829)6. Juan Manuel de Rosas (1829-1850)7. Buenos Aires The Big Village (1850-1880)8. The Paris of South America (1880-1920)9. The City of the Masses (1920-1946)10. The Postwar City (1946-1983)Epilogue: The Contemporary CityAcknowledgmentsSelected BibliographyIndex
language: English
title: Buenos Aires: The Biography of a City
publisher: St. Martin's Press