In order to analyze the circulation and reception of Machiavelli's ideas in the Spanish-speaking Atlantic world, this book has reconstructed how his works were read, discussed, and understood in Argentina between 1880 and 1940. At the same time, it proposes different scales of analysis, through study of the chosen national case, on the one hand, and Spain and its former colonies, on the other. This enables an in-depth look at the modulations and problems differentiating these readings from those prevalent in the English-speaking world.

The affirmation that Argentine and Spanish sources (those studied in a more systematic way in these pages), offer evidence characterizing the reception of Machiavelli's work in the Spanish-speaking Atlantic world does not mean that these sources have aspects that can be generalized and applied to the whole, but rather that there are certain tendencies that deserve to be highlighted. Irrespective of whether they can be generalized or not, Argentine and Spanish readings provide evidence of the ways in which Machiavelli was interpreted in Spanish-speaking Atlantic countries. In addition, there is an extensive range of readings and invocations that reveal attitudes which are very different to those considered typical: disinterest, prejudice, and banal repudiation, arising from an anti-Machiavellian tradition of a Catholic cast. This can be related to some particularities in both cases, which is precisely what motivated their choice. It is worth recalling these briefly.

Argentina has been defined, among the American nations that were formerly Spanish colonies, as a country where liberalism enjoyed an early hegemony, cutting across political and ideological differences, throughout the nineteenth century and until the first few decades of the twentieth, from Catholicism to socialism. This was a long-lasting phenomenon, to the point where it has been affirmed that, despite the crisis of liberalism raging in the country (in tune with the rest of the West) since the first post-war period, and more emphatically since the 1930s, liberalism continued to be valid trait in Argentine politics and political thought. These features made the Argentine case, a priori, a revealing one for a study of the reception of Machiavelli, since the prevalence of liberalism implied less influence issuing from the legacies of the Old Regime, one of which was, precisely, a negative consideration of Machiavelli's work, largely due to Catholic influence.

Spain, in turn, was relevant mainly for obvious reasons related to its weight and influence in the Spanish-speaking Atlantic world.