This is a study of the birth of political life and the rise of a political leadership in the River Plate area during the struggle for independence from Spain. Professor Halperin's book is set against the background of economic uncertainty associated with independence: the problems of adapting not only to a more thorough incorporation into the Atlantic economy and the associated economic dependence on Britain, but also to the loss of the mining areas in Upper Peru that had supplied the main export staples and most of the revenue that made possible the growth of a complex administrative and military apparatus there.