First published in 1884 "La gran aldea" is the author"s attept at exposing and synthesizing the transformation process undertaken by Buenos Aires and its inhabitants during the thirty years that followed Rosas" overthrow. The novel was feverishly written as a serialized column, and from the same desk where he prepared his political articles, a situation that explains some style faults typical of haste writing. Lucio Vicente Lopez, grandson of de Vicente Lopez y Planes and son of Vicente Fidel Lopez received, along a classical education, a political upbringing that allowed him to characterize the argentine society as "beotian", in the intuition that the pampa"s feracity and easy richess would most probably determine political imperfections -as happened in Beotia- rather than a new Athens, as the economic push of the young country seemed to announce. Member of the "80"s generation, columnist of "El Nacional", the newspaper directed by Domingo F. Sarmiento, and afterwards avid supporter...