RICHARD J. WALTER. Politics and Urban Growth in Santiago, Chile, 1891-1941. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2005. Pp. xvii, 319. $65.00.

Abstract

Richard J. Walter's Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910–1942 (1993) provided readers with an interesting examination of nitty gritty local politics and administration as well as an insightful description of that burgeoning and complex metropolis's demographic and spatial dynamics. Walter has now crossed the Andes to delve into these same general areas—local politics, municipal government, and urban transformation—in Santiago de Chile during the period spanning the fall and untimely death of President José Manuel Balmaceda in 1891 to the death (also untimely) of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda in 1941. Accounts of modern Chilean political history tend be national in scope, with most attention paid to the many goings on in the capital. There are, of course, notable exceptions to this generalization. What is key here is that while Santiago has often been at the center of Chilean political history, historians have known relatively little about what transpired politically on the municipal level in the capital during most of the postindependence era. Walter's book focuses on the municipal council of Santiago, whose workings, internal conflicts, and relations with the national government give us considerable insight regarding broader national problems and circumstances. As was the case with his study of Buenos Aires, Walter enters the complicated world of municipal politics—contested by Conservatives, Liberals, Radicals, Democrats, Balmacedists, and others—by examining, to a certain extent, the relationship between local government and the development, financing, and operation of the city's foreign-owned electric streetcar company.