Sarmiento and Europe

Abstract

All through Sarmiento’s life he was under the influence of Europe, whether by atraction or repulsion; yet he set foot in this distant continent only twice, for fifteen months in 1846-47 and briefly in 1867. After the first of these occasions he wrote his Viajes por Europa, Africa i América, which first appeared in 1849. It was soon reproduced in various periodicals, so that when the third edition carne out in 1909 the editor was able to describe it as really the sixth or seventh: triunfo que no es común a otros celebrados libros americanos. After another half-century it remains still a work of striking interest.