The confrontation of two opposed conceptions about political power: uneducated autocratic rule versus cultivated institutionalized government, is the basis of this work, first conceived as a political pamphlet and finally grown into masterpiece heights due to the overflowing Sarmiento talent. "For Sarmiento, barbarism was the native tribes and gaucho plains; and cities, the civilization. The gaucho has been replaced by colonial farmers and blue collar workers, barbarism now is not just in the fields but also in the big city mobs, and the demagogue plays the role of the ancient caudillo, who also was a demagogue. The disjunctive has not changed. Sub especie aeternatitis, Facundo is still the best argentine story", wrote Jos? Luis Borges in his preface to the 1975 edition. Today, 158 years after Facundo was written, and almost 30 years since the Borges reflections, Argentina still fights entangled between the forces that sustain intitutional power versus those who privilege the personal rule of the powerful. Civilization or barbarism is for Argentina still a pending issue, whose roots cannot be fully understood without the enlightening words of Sarmiento.
"After the publication of this work was finished, I have received from several friends rectifications of various facts referred to in it.
Some inaccuracies must necessarily have escaped in a job done in a hurry, far from the theater of events, and on a matter of which nothing had been written so far. By coordinating with each other events that have taken place in different and remote provinces, and at different times, consulting an eyewitness on a point, registering lightly formed manuscripts, or appealing to their own reminiscences, it is not surprising that from time to time the Argentine reader misses something he knows, or disagrees about a proper name, a date, changed or misplaced.
But I must declare that in the notable events to which I refer, and which serve as the basis for the explanations I give, there is an impeccable accuracy that the public documents that exist on them will respond.
D.F. Sarmiento - 1845.