Following the mass arrival of European immigrants to Argentina in the early years of the twentieth century new forms of entertainment emerged including tango, films, radio and theater. While these forms of culture promoted ethnic integration they also produced a new kind of polarization that helped Juan Peron to build the mass movement that propelled him to power.

In an innovative cultural history of Argentine movies and radio in the decades before Peronism, Matthew B. Karush demonstrates that competition with jazz and Hollywood cinema shaped Argentina's domestic cultural production in crucial ways, as Argentine producers tried to elevate their offerings to appeal to consumers seduced by North American modernity. At the same time, the transnational marketplace encouraged these producers to compete by marketing "authentic" Argentine culture. Domestic filmmakers, radio and recording entrepreneurs, lyricists, musicians, actors, and screenwriters borrowed heavily from a rich tradition of popular melodrama. Although the resulting mass culture trafficked in conformism and consumerist titillation, it also disseminated versions of national identity that celebrated the virtue and dignity of the poor, while denigrating the wealthy as greedy and mean-spirited. This anti-elitism has been overlooked by historians, who have depicted radio and cinema as instruments of social cohesion and middle-class formation. Analyzing tango and folk songs, film comedies and dramas, radio soap operas, and other genres, Karush argues that the Argentine culture industries generated polarizing images and narratives that provided much of the discursive raw material from which Juan and Eva Perón built their mass movement.

"“Karush’s book is a key contribution to the analysis of the deep connections between mass culture and politics in the contexts of Latin American ‘alternative modernity’ at large. To Argentine historiography, it adds a refreshing culturalist view of long-running discussions about the origins of Peronism and, more prominently, it helps expand decisively our knowledge of the heterogeneous popular classes through the lens of their cultural consumptions.”" - Journal of Latin American Studies

"“This innovative book builds on and goes beyond recent scholarship on the rise of mass culture in Latin America.” " - Hispanic American Historical Review

"“The book's strengths lie in Kamsh's careful and compelling accounts of the way media worked in inter-war Buenos Aires…. [T]he book's marvelous rendition of a key moment in Argentine history and its persuasive placement of media at the centre of analysis. It will enjoy broad appeal, for undergraduates and graduate students, for scholars of Latin America and those interested in radio, cinema, and the vagaries of political life.”" - Canadian Journal of History

"“[Karush’s] rich analysis of tango and cinema shows the tension between melodrama’s inner conservatism and its subversive message regarding the moral superiority of the popular classes.”" - American Historical Review

"One of the more impressive publications treating radio and cinema in Latin America." - Latin American Research Review

"Culture of Class is composed masterfully. With engaging prose, it forces us to re-examine the causes of Peronism. Published in 2012, it remains a huge contribution to our understanding of the interplay of mass culture and politics in early-twentieth-century Latin America." - Technology and Culture