Written in political exile by one of Argentina's greatest statesmen and intellectuals, this work is ostensibly a biography of the gaucho "barbarian" Juan Facundo Quiroga. It is also a complex and passionate investigation of the dialectic of civilization and barbarism. Sarmiento explores the impact of Argentinian geography on the life of the gaucho, chronicles the upbringing and the often bloody political and military adventures of Facundo, and examines the reign of Juan Manuel de Rosas, the tyrannical ruler of Argentina at the time of Sarmiento's writing.