International Railways in Argentina: Rethinking International Relations and Regional Integration Studies in the Southern Cone

Abstract

The invention of railways in the nineteenth century changed the world, displacing older technologies and modifying how humans perceived space and time. Further, the implementation of the railroad coincided with the institutionalization of nation-states in Europe and the Americas. The creation of a nation consisted of three major tasks?formalizing national borders, creating institutions, and capitalizing on the international division of labor. Railways played a major role in each of these endeavors. They played a key role in aiding politicians and entrepreneurs in efforts to achieve specific economic growth and political consolidation. They also structured each country?s territory via infrastructural connection. Argentina and its neighbor countries each experienced these elements of railroad construction.