Los estudios internacionales en América Latina: realizaciones y desafíos

Arnold Tt!ynbee I THE STl]f>Y OF CONTEMPOKARY HJSTORY. fOlJNDIN(; Of 1 fU' FlRST.. of ancient batttes, the ruíns of ancient eitíes, the bistoriea1 geography of Greeee. And 1 went to Greeee for ten months at the end of 1911, to the Summer of 1912, with the intention of spending my time in tbis way, studying aneient Greek bistory. 1 díd study ancíent Greek history, but for the purpose of studying it, 1 walked about Greeee on the islands; 1walked about with a rueksaek on my back and would spend the night in a Greek village and go to the village shop in the evening and listen to the village people talking. And as 1 earne to learn modern Greek, 1 would take part in the talk, and 1 found them diseussing, say tbis was the Spring of 1912, will the war break out in next Autumn OI the Spring after; and what is the poliey of Sir Edward Grey; what is the policy of Mr. Cornwell; what's the poliey of the German . government, the Russian government. All tbis was sometbing quite new to me. These Greek peasants were in one way simple people but in another way they were very much more alive to what was happening in the world than the students and professors at Oxford were. And 1 therefore got this preliminary edueation of the eoming war. In saying would it take place next Autumn or Spring, the Greek peasants weren't far wrong, because the fírst Balkan war did break out in the Autumn of 1912; followed by the seeond Balkan war in the Spring of 1913; followed by the fírst World War in the Summer of 1914. They knew what they were talking about. During the war 1 served as a temporary offieial in the British Foreign Offíee and 1 went to the París Peace Conferenee of 1919. Incidently I am one of the very few people who attended both the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the París Peace Conference of 1946. Now, among British and American -United States'- delegations at the Peace Conference of 1919, there were a number of people, like myself, who were in temporary government service. just for wartime. There was a nucleus of permanent officials but we were there just to continue temporary government service till the end of the Peace Conference, and then to go back to our ordinary pursuits in prívate life. The reason why we were there and alive was because most of us had sorne physical disability. 1 myself would most unlikely be alive at this moment and speaking to you now, if I had not contraeted dysentry when 1was travelling about in Greece in 1911, whlch made me unfit for military service. If 1 had been fit for military service 1 should no doubt have been killed in 1915 or in 1916, as about sixty pereent of my school fellows and feIlow students at the university were killed in one or other of those two years. . Now, tbis was the experience of all of us temporary officials at the Peace Conference in 1919. The deaths of our contemporaies, the killing on this scale, the destruction, the evil and the wickedness of the war, on the scale of the World War. had made us realise that after all, internacional affairs were important. And'we discussed tbis amongst ourselves and we held a meeting at 21