The research of political exile in Latin America seems to have entered a new phase with a number of books published during 2009. Ráfagas de un exilio is an excellent contribution to this new corpus of enquiry on a subject that has been neglected for many decades. Much has been written on political exile and on this phenomenon in Latin America, but in general it has been literary – novels of exile – autobiographical or biographical – memoirs – or, when dealing with exile from the point of view of the social sciences and the humanities, of psychological or psycho-sociological character, examining the impact of forced translocation on individuals or families. Pablo Yankelevich undertakes the historical examination of the exile of Argentines in Mexico between 1974 and 1983, one of the darkest periods of Argentina's political history. In doing so, he uses a very wide range of sources that includes 18 pages of bibliographical references (mostly in Spanish but also a few works in English, French and Italian), 74 interviews (mostly with political exiles) and various important Latin American newspapers (and The New York Times) and Mexican and Argentine journals (and Les Temps Modernes). All these and the archival sources, in Mexico and Argentina, used by Yankelevich constitute a formidable research basis for a very complete work.

The book is divided into five chapters addressing various aspects of Argentine political exile in Mexico. The beginning and end of the book deal with the special and mainly positive relations between Argentines and Mexicans that evolved in the years studied around the experience of exile. Pointing to the proliferation of works on the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–83) and the elaboration of memory, the author stresses the lack of comprehensive analytical works about the exile that the regime produced and the need to systematise the knowledge of this area, as was done with exile to Europe. Through the various chapters Yankelevich not only undertakes the historical reconstruction of the process under examination but also attempts to evaluate the various sides in the situation (Argentine and Mexican) through their attitudes and results.

The first chapter deals with the quantitative aspects of exile. As this is a very difficult subject, the author opens with a short analysis of the difficulties he confronted and details the ways and means to solve them, at least partially. Comparing the general Argentine presence in Mexico with that of the exiles in the years examined in the book, he reaches interesting conclusions about the mutual benefit that Mexico and most of the Argentine exiles – living, in the first years, through a period of rapid economic growth – both reaped from their encounter.

The chapter on asylum in Buenos Aires examines the background of persecution and repression in Argentina, beginning with the murderous deeds of the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance, Triple A) and continuing with the repression that took place after the military takeover of March 1976. Here, in a rather qualitative analysis that is based mostly on archive texts and interviews both with the exiles and with the Mexican diplomats in situ, Yankelevich depicts the interaction between the two sides in both a positive and negative light. Very important personalities of the Argentine public sphere, such as writer, historian and ex-rector of the University of Buenos Aires Rodolfo Puiggrós and ex-Peronist president of Argentina Héctor Campora (and their families), received political asylum and were sheltered by Mexican diplomats in Buenos Aires. Differences in attitudes as well as changing local circumstances – the military takeover and virtual siege of the embassies that received exiles – are reflected with precision and detail in Yankelevich's account. Sometimes the length of the description and amount of detail is detrimental to the text, however, as it slows and encumbers a narrative that is otherwise fascinating. Yankelevich justly observes that while asylum saved the life of those who received shelter in the Mexican Embassy in Buenos Aires, the processes of getting the exiles out of Argentina were long and complex and indicated the basic weakness both of diplomatic pressure and of the inter-American system of asylum.

The next chapter presents the constitution and internal institutionalisation of the Argentine exile in Mexico, and serves also as an analytical framework for Argentine politics in exile in the 1970s and early 1980s. The author deals with the subject of Peronism and its internal divisions as well as with other groups of the Marxist and socialist Left, attempting to generate a strong political opposition to military rule in Argentina. He describes the establishment of the Comité de Solidaridad con el Pueblo Argentino (Committee in Solidarity with the Argentine People, COSPA, later known as Casa Argentina) in February 1976, and its relationship with the Montoneros guerrillas, with well-known Mexican intellectuals and with the Mexican government and Presidents Echeverría and López Portillo. In 1977, a second organisation of Argentine exiles, the Comisión Argentina de Solidaridad (Argentine Solidarity Commission, CAS) was established by dissidents. This division led to a process of internal disintegration accelerated by the arrival of more exiles from the fatherland. COSPA dissolved in January 1983, while CAS continued its activities until December 1983.

In chapter four Yankelevich analyses the relationship between Argentine exile in Mexico and the local press, discussing the importance of Latin America and Argentina in the Mexican press and the reception into it of a large group of exiled journalists and intellectuals. The Mexican press kept Argentina ever-present in the Mexican public sphere in the years of exile. The presence of experienced Argentine journalists – and journalists from other Latin American countries – coincided with a crisis in the Mexican press and the foundation of new publications in which the exiles found work and channels of expression. Central subjects such as the role of the Montoneros guerrillas and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were discussed through the press in Mexico's public sphere. A number of Argentine writers published their works in Mexico during their period of exile. Analysing the visits of Jorge Luis Borges to Mexico, Yankelevich points to another side of the extremely difficult relationship between culture and politics. Although 1983 constitutes formally the end of exile, the author points out that it took many years in Argentina to recognise the anti-dictatorial work developed by the exiles in Mexico and especially by those active in local journalism.

Yankelevich ends his book with a chapter in which he deals with four hypotheses that explain the special place of Mexico in Argentine exile. The first is that the process had its roots in clear political persecution, and Mexico was a shelter to preserve not only freedom, but in many cases, life itself. The exiles were not migrants but arrived with the clear goal of returning to their homeland. The second hypothesis claims that although the professional capacity of the exiles to Mexico was similar to those that went to other countries, labour insertion proves that Mexico was more welcoming than any other place. The third point is that the richness of Mexico's cultural opportunities and its diversity mitigated the negative feeling implied in any exile process. The last claim regards a social diversity that, while signalling the differences between the two groups, implies solidarity with those that suffer persecution. The general result is to be an argenmex – Argentine-Mexican – an identity mark preserved perhaps in the children born in Mexican exile but that characterised in different ways all those Argentine exiles that found shelter, and much more than that, in Mexico between 1974 and 1983.

The interdisciplinary character of Ráfagas de exilio, the richness of its sources, its qualitative and quantitative research approaches and the variety of subjects it deals with make this book essential reading for those that want to understand political exile in general and Latin American politics in particular.