Historiography of the May Revolution
The last years of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were marked in Argentina by a growing industrialization process and the arrival of huge numbers of European immigrants. Historiographical studies were increased by the ""New Historical school"", in order to forge a "national identity", and the May Revolution had great prominence. There were discussions about the level of influence that the many causes of the May Revolution actually had, or whose interventions were the most decisive, but two points shared by all historians were to consider the May Revolution as the birth of Argentina, and to consider it an inevitable consequence of the causes that led to it (meaning, the chance of the May Revolution never taking place is not considered a feasible possibility by historians). There was also a subtle change: the scope of the revolution as a subject of study originally "started" with the events of May 1810 in Buenos Aires and kept going on for decades. They were later split, and the name "May Revolution" made reference only to events that led to the removal of Cisneros and the creation of the Primera Junta. A new element added by those historians was to consider, either to support or reject the idea, whenever there was an active and strong popular support for the Revolution, instead of explaining it solely around the actions of a limited number of enlightened men. Nevertheless, they kept the previous approaches for the most part.
May Revolution
According to historian Félix Luna's "Breve historia de los Argentinos" (), one of the most important societal consequences of the May Revolution was the shift in the way the people and its rulers related. Until then, the conception of the common good prevailed: while royal authority was fully respected, if an instruction from the crown of Spain was considered detrimental to the common good of the local population, it was half-met or simply ignored. With the revolution, the concept of common good gave way to that of popular sovereignty, as theorized by Moreno, Castelli and Monteagudo, among others. This idea held that, in the absence of a legitimate authority, the people had the right to appoint their own leaders. Over time, popular sovereignty would give way to the idea of majority rule. This maturation of ideas was gradual, taking many decades to crystallize into stable electoral and political systems, but it was what ultimately led to the adoption of the republican system as the form of government for Argentina. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento stated similar views in his "Facundo", and noted that cities were more receptive to republican ideas, while rural areas were more resistant to them, which led to the surge of caudillos.