Dear Reader:

Most Argentines –including myself- yearn to find the path that could lead us to a solid renaissance in the economic, social, political, and cultural fields.

I like to use the word “renaissance” because once Argentina was among the ten wealthiest countries in the world, because our educational budget was higher than all the educational budgets in Latin America added together, because we had a vast and active middle-class full of values, and because work culture and the rewards for merit and effort were common elements.

After my essays A Fantastic Country and The Atrocious Charm of Being Argentine, I believe we should raise the level of the debate, focusing on clear and energetic proposals. They are present in this volume, which I hand to you full of expectation.

It is the result of profound research, painful thinking, and frankness. This book might irritate some people, but it is addressed to an Ideal Reader, both lucid and critical. On each line, I talk to you, my reader, in a straight way, sometimes with humour but always with passion; I try to imagine your gestures, whether of approval or indignation.
Perhaps you will thank me for not being politically correct and for, very often, swimming against the tide. I believe this is the only way we can get rid of archaic and destructive fixations.

In order to help our long-suffering Argentina and the rest of the Latin American continent, I invite you to think and argue. Profound changes have to be plowed up and then fertilized by the change of ideas.

From the bottom of my heart I wish you the most pleasant reading experience.