G ermani, G ino

Abstract

Gino Germani (1911–1979) was born in Rome, Italy. He studied economics during the years of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. He was forced to leave Italy for Argentina in 1934, and studied philosophy and sociology at the University of Buenos Aires, where he continued working as a research assistant. In 1944, with the rise of Peronism, he was forced out of academia, and found refuge as editor at the publishing houses Paidós and Abril. His editorial work had a enormous intellectual influence in Argentina and Latin America. In 1955, he published Estructura Social de la Argentina , and in 1957 he founded the first sociology department at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1966, he accepted the Monroe Guttman Chair of Latin American Affairs and Sociology at Harvard University. In the calm atmosphere of this North American institution, Germani published his opus magnum in three volumes on the nature of the drastic modernization processes that had radically transformed Latin American societies.