SOURCE: "In the Embrace of Spain," in New York Times Book Review, April 26, 1992, p. 9.

In the following review, Shumway offers a mixed assessment of The Buried Mirror.

In 1856, Argentina's first great historian, Bartolome Mitre, published a collection of short biographies titled Gallery of Argentine Celebrities. In the foreword he wrote: "Argentine history has been rich in noteworthy men…. The glory of those men is the Argentine people's richest heritage; rescuing their lives and qualities from obscurity is to gather and use that heritage, for our honor and our improvement." Mitre's affirmation of Argentina's greatness came at a time of serious crisis. Two opposing governments claimed to rule the country, and the threat of lasting fragmentation loomed at every juncture. Yet Mitre denied even the possibility of permanent failure. Whatever the problems of the moment, his book held that Argentina was a spiritual unit with a glorious past that...