Overview

In 1946 Juan Peron launched a populist challenge to the United States, recruiting an army of labor activists to serve as worker attaches at every Argentine embassy. By 1955, over five hundred would serve, representing the largest presence of blue-collar workers in the foreign service of any country in history. A meatpacking union leader taught striking workers in Chicago about rising salaries under Peron. A railroad motorist joined the revolution in Bolivia. A baker showed Soviet workers the daily caloric intake of their Argentine counterparts. As Ambassadors of the Working Class shows, the attaches' struggle against US diplomats in Latin America turned the region into a Cold War battlefield for the hearts of the working classes. In this context, Ernesto Seman reveals, for example, how the attaches' brand of transnational populism offered Fidel Castro and Che Guevara their last chance at mass politics before their embrace of revolutionary violence. Fiercely opposed by Washington, the attaches' project foundered, but not before US policymakers used their opposition to Peronism to rehearse arguments against the New Deal's legacies.

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9780822369059

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Reviews

Ambassadors of the Working Class is an example of the possibilities offered by a truly transnational historical approach, informed by careful research and relevant theoretical frameworks. It opens interesting comparative perspectives with other movements and countries in Latin America, and it should be of interest to scholars and students of Peronism and the Cold World in Latin America. -- Jorge A. Nallim * Journal of Latin American Studies * An outstanding piece of scholarship. -- Stephen G. Rabe * Canadian Journal of History * This book will be essential reading for scholars interested in international labor relationships, Peronism, and the ways in which democracy was being debated and redefined in post-World War II Latin America. -- Amie Campos * H-Latam, H-Net Reviews * Ambassadors of the Working Class is one of those rare hidden histories that come to light out of the blue to capture the imagination. -- Gavin O'Toole * Latin American Review of Books * In this insightful volume, the author provides a multilevel analysis of the workings and lasting impact of Argentine labor attaches in the post-World War II era. . . . Among the many unique contributions of this book is the analysis of how nationalist Peronism became a symbol for domestic and transnational competing visions of liberal democracy and how it was a lens through which US policy makers and elites viewed the legacy of the New Deal. Highly recommended. -- L. M. Barnett * Choice *

Using the history of Peronist worker attaches, Ernesto Seman takes readers on a journey through the political, economic, and social history not only of Argentina but of the Americas as a whole. This is political, economic, intellectual, and transnational history at its best. This splendid book reveals how the attaches and their intense activism shaped the dynamics of early Cold War politics in the Americas, and Seman provides novel perspectives on Argentinian populism, its historical tributaries and the way is enables us to rethink the legacy of the FDR's New Deal. -- Barry Carr, coeditor of The Cuba Reader: History, Culture, Politics Wonderfully written and argued, combining transnational history, political analysis, and cultural studies, this account of Argentina's worker attaches is transformative-not only because it tells the little known story of union activists in the Argentine diplomatic service but also, and most importantly, because it sheds valuable new light on our understanding of Peronism. -- Javier Auyero, author of Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina

Wonderfully written and argued, combining transnational history, political analysis, and cultural studies, this account of Argentina's worker attaches is transformative--not only because it tells the little known story of union activists in the Argentine diplomatic service but also, and most importantly, because it sheds valuable new light on our understanding of Peronism. --Javier Auyero, author of Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina

Author Information

Historian Ernesto SemÁn is Assistant Professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond and the author of five previous books, which include novels and political essays.

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