A 'Necessary' Dictatorship: The 'Age of Rosas' in Argentine History Textbooks published between 1956 and 1983 and the Defence of Authoritarianism.

This paper aims to demonstrate that two traditionally opposed approaches - the official view and a revisionist approach - conflate in defence of authoritarianism in the teaching of History. The main focus is on school textbooks published between 1956, the year when an educational reform was introduced following President Perón's overthrow, and 1983, which saw the fall of the last military dictatorship. There is a comparison of the two main approaches, followed by an analysis of the arguments found in textbooks. These in turn are analysed and compared with those of classic revisionism, which in the 1930s brought about much debate in Argentine history, especially through a reappraisal of Juan Manuel de Rosas's government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]