The field of optics was shaken by the invention of the laser and by the new technical and theoretical developments that took place during the 1960s, resulting in a discontinuity in the field and the creation of a new discipline, the quantum optics. In this paper we discuss the role of textbooks and summer schools in the consolidation of quantum optics, with a focus on two courses by the Brazilian physicist Herch Moysés Nussenzveig that originated two out of the five first textbooks on quantum optics. The lectures were presented at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, in 1968, and at the Latin-American School of Physics held in La Plata, Argentina, in 1970. Those were the first lectures on quantum optics in Latin America. We discuss the important role played by Nussenzveig, his textbooks, and his courses to consolidate and spread quantum optics over the Americas.
history of quantum optics; Moysés Nussenzveig; Summer schools
