L’Eldorado de la libre - pensée ? L’Amérique latine comme objectif stratégique de la Fédération Internationale de la Libre Pensée (1880 - 1914)

Abstract

This  article  shows  that,  for  the  International  Free  Thought  Federation,  Latin  America  was  a  strategic objective. Argentina and Brazil were the bridgeheads of this deployment. Certain masonic networks were the platform, the social support of this operation. The 11th freethought international congress, in 1904, marked a hinge by provoking a massive mobilization, by widening its program and its doctrine, and by integrating in a new way Latin America, represented by the Argentina, in particular by Manuel B. Ugarte. It is thus about a preliminary  study  intended  to  demonstrate  the  interest  to  deepen  this  little  known  dimension  of  the  cultural history of the contemporary international relations.