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🇦🇷 Argentina /Culture & Society

Historian and essayist Norberto Galasso dies at 90

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Outcome reported
  • Argentine historian and essayist Norberto Galasso died in Buenos Aires at age 90.
  • He published more than 50 essays, historical studies, political works and biographies, and became known for a popular and anti-imperialist approach to Argentine history.
  • Galasso’s books were censored during Argentina’s last military dictatorship, while his work later received public recognition, including the designation of his home as a cultural site in 2024.

Norberto Galasso, the historian and essayist whose work examined Argentina through what he called a popular and anti-imperialist perspective, died in Buenos Aires at the age of 90. He was born on July 28, 1936, and graduated as a public accountant from the University of Buenos Aires’ Faculty of Economic Sciences in 1961.

As a young man, Galasso studied Marxist thinkers and joined Jorge Abelardo Ramos’s Socialist Party of the National Left in 1964. From the 1970s, he combined left-wing ideas with Peronist nationalism as part of one strand of Argentina’s historical revisionism. In 1973, he worked as an auditor at Eudeba, the University of Buenos Aires publishing house then led by Arturo Jauretche, whose biography he later wrote.

university of the catacombs

· Norberto Galasso’s contemporaries and the article’s accountThe phrase refers to the history courses and seminars Galasso held in bars, homes and bookstores after his books were censored during the dictatorship.

During the last military dictatorship, authorities censored and withdrew several of his books, including “Vida de Manuel Ugarte” and “¿Qué es el socialismo nacional?”. Galasso responded by teaching Argentine history in what became known as the “university of the catacombs,” holding courses and seminars in bars, homes and bookstores.

cursed figures of Argentine history

· Norberto GalassoGalasso used the expression for historical figures whose ideas and work he helped bring back into public discussion.

He published more than 50 essays, anthologies, historical and political studies, and research works. He helped restore attention to figures including Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, Jauretche, Manuel Ugarte and Juan José Hernández Arregui, whom he called the “cursed” figures of Argentine history. His widely read works included “Historia de la Argentina,” “Perón,” “Seamos libres, lo demás no importa nada. Vida de San Martín” and “Manuel Ugarte y la unidad latinoamericana.”

Galasso supported the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. A documentary about him, “Galasso, pensar en nacional,” was released in 2023. In 2024, Buenos Aires lawmakers declared his home in Parque Chacabuco a cultural-interest site. Politicians and intellectuals who shared his ideas, including Daniel Filmus, Blanca Osuna and Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez, paid tribute to him on social media.

popular and anti-imperialist

· Article description of Norberto Galasso’s approachThe phrase characterizes the perspective he applied to Argentina and its history for more than six decades.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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