Brazil was among the founding states of UNESCO, and from the beginning was a keen and eager participant in its many programmes and projects, particularly those relating to textbook revisions. At the same time, Brazil gained considerable international recognition especially within the UNESCO community because it came to be seen as a model society in which race and prejudice supposedly mattered little (Métraux, 1952). This makes the case of Brazil particularly apt for understanding the complex intermeshing between international organizations and member states. Using Brazil as a case in this context this paper analyses historical entanglements between different threads of peace initiatives in education.

Long before Brazil joined UNESCO, it already had a history of active engagements in international peace through education and textbook revision programmes at international organizations and in bilateral agreements with other states. As early as in October 1933, a bilateral agreement between Brazil and Argentina concerning the periodical revision of geography and history textbooks was signed. Uruguay and Mexico soon joined and ratified the agreement (Dussel and Ydesen, 2016). It called for a revision of history textbooks aimed at weeding out negative statements pertaining to any American people. So, when in 1945 UNESCO determined the revision of history and geography textbooks as a mean to promote international understanding, Brazil had already a story to tell about. A story where new education ideas coming through some of the most important names of pedagogical (r)evolution in Brazil travelling to the United States to meet Dewey and his colleagues, mix with the national determinations to accomplish the established agreements.

Travelers coming from the UNESCO’s Office in Paris to Brazil and Brazilian delegates participating in UNESCO international seminars and particularly important the presence of the same Brazilian representative at UNESCO in Paris, Paulo de Carneiro, during this period, strongly contributed to write down a common narrative where one can read both the evolution of national and international education and the promotion of peace and international understanding.

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