The Chaco War

The study of the Chaco War is dominated by military and political histories that frame the conflict in national terms in an effort to explain the root causes of the war and its outcome. Why did the war start in the first place, and how was Paraguay able to defeat the more powerful Bolivian army? This volume offers no conclusive answers to these questions. Instead, as Bridget María Chesterton points out in the introduction, the goal of the volume is to “come to an understanding of the war in a broad transnational context” that moves beyond nationalist historiography to uncover “lesser-known narratives of the Chaco War” (pp. 13, 17). While several contributors engage with traditional debates, this volume examines not simply the war itself but its impact on people from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds in both Bolivia and Paraguay.A major theme of the book is its focus on the war as a lens through which to examine the construction of sociocultural and national identities. For example, Elizabeth Shesko's chapter explores the experiences of Bolivian prisoners of war who worked throughout Paraguay in various occupations. Shesko argues that differences in class, ethnicity, and region of origin played a decisive role in determining living and working conditions for prisoners. Thus, while elite Bolivian officers spent their imprisonment in relative luxury, impoverished indigenous soldiers suffered abuse and grueling work conditions and identified little with any broader nationalist sentiment. Shesko's interpretation contrasts with those of Luis Sierra and Esther Breithoff, both of whom imply through their case studies that the war intensified feelings of nationalism among citizens. Sierra shows how union activists in La Paz drew upon the language of national belonging and service to country to advance their agenda in the midst of Bolivia's postwar labor movement. Breithoff examines the engravings that Paraguayan soldiers left behind on shell casings, many of which were decorated with patriotic symbols and phrases. Taken together, these chapters raise interesting questions about the impact of the war on national identity formation and its relationship to other markers of identity such as ethnicity and class.A second major theme is the volume's focus on the environment and the production of space. Historians have long agreed that the Chaco's harsh climate and distance from centers of population played a decisive role in the outcome of the war. None of the contributors to this volume question this consensus. Instead, they reframe the conflict in light of the growing scholarship in environmental history. For example, Carlos Gomez Florentin demonstrates how Paraguayan forces used water, animal power, and other sources of energy to create an “organic army” that gained a tactical advantage over a Bolivian army that depended heavily on oil (p. 136). Ben Nobbs-Thiessen explores how one member of the Bolivian elite placed faith in “patriotic engineering”—the construction of a canal to connect the Amazon and Paraguay River watersheds—to overcome environmental and geographical obstacles that impeded the Bolivian war effort. His chapter provides a window into the mindset of Bolivian elites, most of whom regarded the Chaco as a space that needed to be understood, populated, and integrated into national networks of power.While the volume succeeds in providing new perspectives on the conflict, only a few contributors explicitly address the second broad goal, which is to offer a transnational approach to the study of the Chaco War. Essays by Shesko, Chesterton and Thilo Papacek, Erick Langer, and Stephen Cote stand out in this regard. Shesko's chapter draws from both Paraguayan and Bolivian archives, providing a richly documented analysis of the experiences of Bolivian war prisoners. Chesterton and Papacek's essay unites archival materials from Germany and Bolivia to illuminate Carlos Fiebrig's efforts to nationalize Paraguay's natural regions through the creation of a botanical garden, thus influencing public opinion about territorial claims in the Chaco. Langer examines the complex history of interactions between the Chaco's indigenous populations, settlers, and representatives of the Bolivian, Paraguayan, and Argentine states to explain indigenous support for Paraguay during the war. Finally, Cote places his chapter within the context of the worldwide depression of the 1930s, the collapse of Bolivia's tin market, and growing resentment of foreign control over oil reserves. He argues that “oil nationalism” and a desire to diversify the national economy inspired the actions of Bolivian elites before and after the war.Shifting focus away from the events of the conflict itself and onto the war's impact on diverse stakeholders, this volume represents a welcome addition to existing scholarship on the Chaco War and will be of interest to a wide range of specialists, including military and environmental historians. It also opens promising new avenues for inquiry, including the impact of the war on the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra and the Mennonite colonies of the Paraguayan Chaco

Context (archaeology · Elite · Ethnic group · Historiography · Indigenous · Narrative · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Gender Studies · History · Indigenous Cultures and History · Law

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