The Science of Eradication: Urban Modernity and Neoliberalism in Santiago, Chile, 1973–1990 by César Leyton Robinson (review)

César Leyton Robinson traces the genealogy of the Chilean dictatorship’s governing ideology and its application to the remaking of urban spaces. He argues, mostly convincingly, that the Pinochet regime’s approach to urban planning from 1973 to 1990 integrated three distinct but related streams of thought: hygiene or public health, geopolitics, and neoliberalism. 2e regime’s program of eradication—the forced relocation of thousands of people from informal se4lements to new housing developments in the Santiago metropolitan area—was the culmination of several decades of elite preoccupation with the growing threat of the impoverished urban masses. While this book is sure to have an in5uence on Chilean historiography of the dictatorship, it might be especially a4ractive to geographers for its rich analysis of how ideology le6 a material imprint on society and space in the neoliberal city of Santiago: Free-market fundamentalism was important, but there is more to the story. César Leyton Robinson La ciencia de la erradicación: Modernidad urbana y neoliberalismo en Santiago de Chile, 19731990 [!e Science of Eradication: Urban Modernity and Neoliberalism in Santiago, Chile, 1973–1990]. Madrid: Editorial CSIC, 2020. 270 pp. Notes, bibliography. €19.23 hardcover (ISBN 978-84-0010612-6); €4.14; eBook (ISBN 978-84-00-10613-3).