Martín García Mérou y su vida diplomática en Estados Unidos, 1896-1900 y 1901-1905

Abstract

Martín García Mérou (1862-1905) participated profoundly in the intellectual and diplomatic life of his time and on a transnational scale. He served in various positions in the Argentine foreign service and was a poet, journalist, critic, essayist, historian, chronicler, biographer and novelist. Born in Argentina, García Mérou spent most of his life abroad. He lived in Latin American countries, such as Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil, in the United States, and in Spain and Germany. He combined those residences with his intellectual activities and his works on the cultural life and the history of those scenarios, far from being the classic travel stories or impressions of the time, are solidly informed studies on social configurations and cultural dynamics that account for the modernizing processes of the 19th to 20th centuries. This essay focuses on a share of the cultural and diplomatic trajectory from his stays in the United States. Attention is given to his observations on the 1898 war, the Pan-American Conferences, Pan-Americanism and the climate of ideas often characterized as the "first Latin American antiimperialism". At the same time, a critical analysis of his writings is made to understand the representations about topics of his time, specifically: the consolidation of state structures in Latin America, the visions about the United States and its international projection, and his thoughts on the Argentine foreign service, among other aspects. To this end, sources from the Historical Archive of the Argentine Chancellery, the García Mérou Fund of the Zinny Bibliographic Institute, newspaper articles and periodicals and edited works are reviewed.