A woman, a man, a nation: Mariquita Sánchez, Juan Manuel de Rosas, and the beginnings of Argentina

business. As one who held a position on the independent U.S. International Trade Commission during the Reagan years, I am especially aware of how the president’s support for deregulation and free trade accelerated the globalization of trade and finance. It also facilitated the extraordinary technological developments in information processing and communications that have transformed the contemporary world. Witcher seems unaware of how Reagan’s efforts to engage China in the global marketplace, a continuation of policies pursued since Richard Nixon, gradually transformed world trade patterns and tied American consumers to Asian suppliers. In his farewell address, Reagan alluded to some of these enduring achievements: “We meant to change a nation, and instead we changed a world. Countries across the globe are turning to free markets . . . and turning away from the ideologies of the past.” In short, the conservative Reagan legacy was much greater and more durable than many of Reagan’s contemporaries, and some historians, have yet recognized.