lit a candle 7 Sept 2026Read San Martín the way he wrote it. Changed my mind about a lot of things.
Their story
Norberto Félix Galasso was born in Buenos Aires on 28 July 1936 and died in the same city on 7 September 2026 at the age of 90. He became one of Argentina's most prolific and combative popular historians: a revisionist essayist who spent more than six decades retelling the national…
Norberto Félix Galasso was born in Buenos Aires on 28 July 1936 and died in the same city on 7 September 2026 at the age of 90. He became one of Argentina's most prolific and combative popular historians: a revisionist essayist who spent more than six decades retelling the national past "from below," with the people rather than "great men" as protagonists. Página|12 headlined his death as the end of a life dedicated to pensamiento nacional; El Ciudadano called him a fundamental teacher of that tradition.
He trained as a public accountant at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, graduating in 1961. Teaching and night-school adult education sat beside early political reading of Marx and Trotsky. In the mid-1960s he joined Jorge Abelardo Ramos's Partido Socialista de la Izquierda Nacional (PSIN), serving as national finance secretary, before breaking with Ramos around 1971 over what he later called opportunistic politics. Contact with Peronism and the Juventud Peronista reoriented him toward a "socialismo nacional" anchored in the national question and Latin American unity. In 1973 he briefly served as síndico of EUDEBA under Arturo Jauretche, resigning over management differences. Under the last military dictatorship his books Vida de Manuel Ugarte and ¿Qué es el socialismo nacional? were censored, and he temporarily left his Parque Chacabuco home to avoid detention.
From his 1963 debut Mariano Moreno y la revolución nacional onward he published a cascade of biographies and essays: Scalabrini Ortiz, Discépolo, Manuel Ugarte, Juan José Hernández Arregui, John William Cooke, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Felipe Varela, and many others. He coordinated the multi-volume collective Los malditos, recovering hundreds of figures excluded from the Mitrista schoolroom canon. In 2004 Colihue issued Seamos libres y lo demás no importa nada, his San Martín biography; in 2005 came the two-volume Perón (Formación, ascenso y caída and Exilio, resistencia, retorno y muerte), which became a standard popular reference. Later titles included La compañera Evita, Historia de los trabajadores argentinos, works on the external debt, De Perón a Kirchner, Historia de la Argentina through the Kirchner years, Kirchnerismo, and Mauricio Macri: La vuelta al pasado. By his ninetieth birthday, Periódico VAS credited him with more than 80 books and some 30 Cuadernos para la otra historia.
Galasso was not only a writer. From 1997 he directed the Centro Cultural Enrique Santos Discépolo and helped sustain the Centro de Estudios Políticos y Sociales Felipe Varela. Between 2004 and 2010 he packed Buenos Aires's ND Ateneo with courses such as "La otra historia argentina" and "Los malditos," later edited with INCAA for schools. He appeared on radio (Excélsior, Provincia, Continental, Nacional, Cooperativa, La Voz de las Madres) and from July 2017 hosted Galasso de Media Cancha on Radio Caput. Television credits included Canal Encuentro, Telesur, 678, and the miniseries Voces (2007). He directed the online paper Señales populares. In 1999 he ran for deputy on a small ticket with Abel Alexis Latendorf.
Honours tracked his standing in the national-popular camp: Personalidad Destacada de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (2005); first honorary member of Instituto PATRIA (2016); doctor honoris causa of the Universidad Nacional del Comahue; a Radio Nacional trajectory award; and, in April 2014, designation as Embajador de la cultura popular argentina (a post previously held by Isabel Sarli). In 2024 the Buenos Aires City Legislature declared his Parque Chacabuco house a sitio de interés cultural. In September 2025, Decree 692 of the Milei government revoked the embajador designation, ending a subsecretary-rank stipend; Galasso and allies denounced the measure as persecution. He remained intellectually active into his nineties, still writing and speaking.
His private life was quieter and, late in life, painful. He was father of two children, Gustavo and María Laura. From about age eight he lived in the family property on Avenida Asamblea in Parque Chacabuco, beside the old Galasso jewellery shop. From 2023 Argentine outlets (Perfil, Tiempo Argentino, La Nación coverage of supporters' statements) reported a bitter property dispute in which he and Gustavo alleged that María Laura had obtained title through deceptive deeds in 2009 and later mortgaged the home. Friends including publisher Aurelio Narvaja of Colihue issued solidarity statements. Spouse and parents' full names were not published in the major biographical sources used for this memorial.
Norberto Galasso died in Buenos Aires on Monday 7 September 2026. Cause of death was not made public in Página|12, El Ciudadano, or the ES Wikipedia death notice. Tributes from the national-popular camp, including remarks by deputy Eduardo Toniolli recalling Galasso's unpaid 1990s teaching trips to Rosario "bolsito en mano," framed him as a coherent militant of history as a tool of liberation. His archive is available for consultation at the Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno's Fondo Norberto Galasso.
Biography adapted from ES Wikipedia Norberto Galasso (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norberto_Galasso); EN Wikipedia Norberto Galasso; Página|12 (murió a los 90 años, 2026-09-07); El Ciudadano (murió Norberto Galasso, maestr. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“La óptica que tengo para ver la historia es con el pueblo como protagonista, no con los grandes hombres.”
Widely cited historical-method line; Periódico VAS birthday feature, 2026-07-28. English paraphrase: The lens I use to see history has the people as protagonist, not the great men.
“Tengamos la certidumbre de que el pueblo siempre vuelve, y como siempre vuelve vamos a ganar.”
Instituto PATRIA speech, 2016 (KontraInfo / PATRIA coverage). Paraphrase: Let us be certain that the people always return, and because they always return we are going to win.
“Wall Street ha ocupado el gobierno nacional.”
Instituto PATRIA 2016 speech on Wall Street and Cambiemos. Paraphrase: Wall Street has occupied the national government.
“No es poca cosa que un pensador haya defendido la misma causa por más de cuarenta años...”
Forjista magazine blurb often attached to his career. Paraphrase: It is no small thing that a thinker has defended the same cause for more than forty years...
“Demasiado oportunismo”
On leaving Ramos (telephone interview, 2009, cited on ES Wikipedia): withdrew after sensing too much opportunism in Ramos's attitudes, later verified when Ramos became menemista.
“Las ideas necesarias siempre se imponen.”
Documentary closing reflection in Galasso. Pensar en nacional (Federico Sosa), via Tiempo Argentino. Paraphrase: Necessary ideas always impose themselves.
“Bolsito en mano”
Eduardo Toniolli tribute (El Ciudadano, 2026-09-07): recalled Galasso arriving in Rosario in the 1990s with little bag in hand, unpaid, to teach young militants the trail of national thought.
“Seamos libres y lo demás no importa nada.”
San Martín maxim used as title of Galasso's 2004 Colihue biography. Paraphrase: Let us be free, and nothing else matters.
Photos
2Norberto Galasso (cropped portrait)
by People Forever
Inauguration of the Museo del Bicentenario (2011); Galasso with CFK party. Cover image.
by People Forever
My father quoted him all the time. Said he was one of the few who got it right.