ABSTRACT
Within the history of the school framework, this chapter aims to examine the circulation Luiz Alves de Mattos and his books for teachers had on national, international, and transnational dimensions. “From place to place” is the movement that refers to physical and geographical spaces and also the social spaces in which Mattos built in his career. It is the result of connections made from 1920s to 1960s with institutions, groups, and individuals specialized in education in Brazil and in the world, especially in the United States and Argentina. This analysis warns us about the delusions according to which educators and their works would always stand out for having “learned lessons from abroad.” This belief presupposes a knowledge circuit whose starting point are the rich and most “developed” countries and the arrival point are the “peripheral” countries, such as Brazil. His itineraries constitute a kind of “reverse circuit” because his work is not a mere copy of North American references, consolidating him as a leading author in the Ibero-American space. It is possible to escape the limits of interpretations that believe in the “transfer” of knowledge from one place to another, reducing relations between central and peripheral countries to a linear movement.
