Beginning in the year Uruguayans elected a different party into government for the first time in nearly a century, the author
examines intellectuals' role in the Uruguayan left's drive toward unity and effectiveness. Discussion focuses on fragmentation and
impotence on the left; frustrated attempts at left unity in the 1960s; the creation of the centre-left Broad Front in 1971; and the
defeat of all left endeavours and all dialogue in the 1973 military coup -- a prelude to a twelve-year dictatorship in which the
military substituted themselves for intellectuals. The story continues in 1985, reversing the earlier trend in a record of dispersal
and diversity. The author details the initial post-authoritarian anarchic cultural outburst -- part celebration, part frustration;
intellectuals' role in the disputes that accompanied the Broad Front's move from democratic socialism to social democracy, and
from opposition to government in 2004; and recent excursions into the long-standing Uruguayan obsession with its identity and
viability as an independent nation. This book is essential reading for all those interested in interplay between intellectuals and
politics in Latin America; changes in the Latin American left since the 1960s; and the leftward drift of elected governments in the
Southern Cone.