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Watching British media such as BBC, there seems to be information about India, other parts of Asia, Africa (mainly English-speaking Africa) and the Middle East. There isn't much about Latin America, except when there are really serious problems in a given country (as it is happening now in Venezuela).

Meanwhile, in Argentina there isn't much information about the United Kindom, either, and in Uruguay even less (I don't know in Chile).

Given this, it's hard to remember that till 1929, or even till 1940, the Southern Cone of Latin America was firmly within the British sphere. Most exports went to the UK, and a great part of industrial imports came from there. The Bristish controlled railways, most banks and even compannies that provided public services such as electricity or communications.

Ties with Great Britain were mostly in the economic domain, but they translated in cultural influences (mainly from Britain towards the Souther Cone, none viceversa). Traces of these influences can be found till today: Argentina and Uruguay are probably the Latin American countries were rugby is more popular (though never as far as football, of course); in both countries, there are many educational institutions (private schools and foreign language learning institutes) were British English language (not American English) is taught (and where other parts of British culture are taught as well, such as British plays); both in Uruguay and Argentina, Cambridge English language assesssment exams are more or at least as popular as American ones, such as TOEFEL. There are other examples: there are estancias in Patagonia whose original founders were British, and still keep whole collections of the British Encyclopedia.

Without a major POD, econnomic ties between the Southern Cone and the UK were destined to diminish significantly after WWII, since Britain couldn't keep on buying such a great deal of these countries exports, nor could it continue providing cheap infustrial products, nor vast amount of funds in terms of foreign investments. Changing that would require significant modifications that would affect the whole world.

But, could cultural links have remained strong even when econnomic ties have weakened?
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