Brazil Now - Article:

Americans on Brazil: a reading list.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

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Picture of extraction of diamonds in Colonial Brazil Brazilians are very curious what people from other countries think about them. Even more so, if you are from the only remaining superpower and former colony, the USA. The online version of current affairs magazine Veja published the following list with the most important books written by Americans about Brazil. The list is based on the book O Brasil dos Brasilianistas. Foreigners who study Brazil are called Brasilinianistas, their science is called Brasilianismo. Review links to a review in the Books section of this site.

1957	The Brazilian Cotton Manufacture: Textile Enterprise in a Underdeveloped Area, 1850-1950.
Stein, Stanley J.
One of the leaders of academic brasilianismo, and one of the most competent specialists on the emergence of modern Brazil. In the same year he also published a study about the coffee community in Vassouras.

1958	From Community to Metropolis: A Biography of S?o Paulo
Morse, Richard M
One of the first (and few) efforts to study Sao Paulo as an historical structure with it`s own logic and dynamics. Richard Morse was the most original Brasilianist,and maybe the only one to transcend his original condition, to try and make a comparative analysis of development in Latin America and the US from an Iberic and not an Anglo-Saxon point of view in his book Prospero's Mirror: A Study in New World Dialectic.

1962	The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750: growing pains of a colonial society. Review
Boxer, Charles R.
By an english historian, but published in the US to justify it’s inclusion on this list. A new view on our colonial period, the Portuguese expansion on Spanish territory, the foreign invasions (French and Dutch), and the gold society in the mining regions. Based on excellent work in the historical archives and documentation of the period.

1963	An Introduction to Brazil. Review
Wagley, Charles
For a long time this was the introductory text used on the American universities. By an author who worked in the field and published books since the 1940’s. He also took part in the famous UNESCO research on race and class in Brazil.

1964	British Pre?minence in Brazil: Its Rise and Decline; a study in european expansion.
Manchester, Alan K
First published in 1933. This 1964 edition originated the influential Brazilian edition of the book. The classic work on British hegemony in Brazil between the colonial period and the 1920’s.

1965	Industrialization and Economic Development in Brazil.
Werner Baer
The book has been continuously updated and reprinted in Brazil due to it’s complete and objective coverage of essential aspects of Brazilian industrialization.

1966	The Unwritten Alliance: Rio Branco and Brazilian-American Relations.
Burns, E. Bradford
One of the first works of diplomatic history to concentrate on the relation between the US and Brazil. Overly optimistic, but well researched.

1967	Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964: An Experiment in Democracy. Review
Skidmore, Thomas E.
Has become the standard work on contemporary Brazil due to the inexistence of Brazilian works that present a balanced synthesis of civic-military relations during the Vargas years. Weak on international questions, passable on the economic ones but honest on politics. Pessimistic about Brazil changes to become a democratic society as is shown by experiment in the title.

1968	Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850-1914.
Graham, Richard
Another classic book of historical research on the economic transformation process from Imperial to Republican Brazil. Based on extensive archival work and providing an honest and balanced interpretation of the principal questions involved.

1968	Economic Policy-Making and Development in Brazil, 1947-1964 and The Brazilian Capital Goods Industry.
Leff, Nathaniel H
Two thorough studies on Brazil’s economic development. Revising half truths by influential Brazilian historians like Caio Prado Jr. and Celso Furtado, and putting Brazil’s backwardness in a new structural perspective.

1969	The Industrialization of S?o Paulo, 1880-1945.
Dean, Warren
A study that is still valid although it has been surpassed by new studies on the industrialization of Brazil. By an author that continues to produce important works on Brazil. Like his study on Amazonian rubber ( Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber : A Study in Environmental History) and on the destruction of tha Atlantic rain forrest ( With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest).

1970	The Vargas Regime: the critical years, 1934-1938.
Robert M. Levine
History of Brazil between the constitutional assembly and the Estado Novo. Examines the Vargas dictatorship based on tremendous archival research and balanced analyses by one of the authorities on the era.

1970	Unrest in Brazil: Political-Military Crises, 1955-1964.
Dulles, John W. F.
The second and one of the best books by this self-styled historian who has done one of the best jobs in reconstituting Brazil’s political itinerary in the past century. This has not led to recognition from the other Brasilinianistas or in Brazil. The book has never been translated into Portuguese.

1971	Rio Grande do Sul and Brazilian regionalism, 1882-1930.
Love, Joseph
One of the best historians of Brazilian economy and politics. He coordinated this project of regional history in which other authors took care of other regions: Levine for Pernambuco, John Wirth for Minas Gerais and Love himself of Sao Paulo (S?o Paulo and the Brazilian Federation, 1889-1937).

1971	The Military in Politics: changing patterns in Brazil.
Stepan, Alfred
The book that reinvented the research of the role of the army in Brazilian politics. Did have success by discussing the force that suffocated the Brazilian academic climate when one didn`t dare to analyze the military for fear of sanctions. Combined analytical rigor with openness to various opinions and was read by the army officers as well. Probably because of lack of comparable works.

1972	The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil.
Toplin, Robert Brent
This book and The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888 by Conrad examine the Brazilian tradition (Gilberto Freyre and his predecessors) to minimize the cruelty of slavery in Brazil. They make clear how difficult it was to abolish slavery and how the ruling class stuck to the principles of slavery right to the end.

1972	The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850-1888.
Conrad, Robert E
This book and The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil by Toplin examine the Brazilian tradition (Gilberto Freyre and his predecessors) to minimize the cruelty of slavery in Brazil. They make clear how difficult it was to abolish slavery and how the ruling class stuck to the principles of slavery right to the end.

1973	Anarchists and Communists in Brazil, 1900-1935.
Dulles, John W. F.
All the research done by Brazilian sociologists and historians of the working class hasn’t produced a book like this one. Although it sticks to the facts without interpretation, it is an essential history of the formation of the Brazilian labour movement as a political force and its ambiguous relation with the workers.

1973	Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil: the High Court of Bahia and its judges, 1609-1751.
Schwartz, Stuart B.
One of the most important authorities on Brazilian colonial society with an emphasis on Bahia.

1973	Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal, 1750-1808.
Kenneth Maxwell
By an english historian who became American afterwards. A new vision on the conspiracy by the elite form Minas Gerais against colonial domination. He went on studying the Pombal period and its impact on Brazil.

1974	Black Into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought.
Skidmore, Thomas E.
Just a history of ideas, but based on literature and documents from the period to show the ideology of branqueamento popular among the Brazilian elite despite their own mixed origin.

1974	The Prestes Column: revolution in Brazil.
Macaulay, Neill
Start of the demystification of the Prestes column.

1974	The Brazilian Communist Party: conflict and integration, 1922-1972.
Chilcote, Ronald. H.
Brazilian historians, communists or otherwise, have not been able to produce anything like this book. An omission that must have been caused by a collective mental blockade. An honest, relatively complete history, of the eventful first half century of the Brazilian communist party. Prestes is treated without concessions to his myth.

1975	Brazil and the great powers, 1930-1939: the politics of trade rivalry and Brazil and the Internacional Crisis: 1930-1945.
Hilton, Stanley E.
An important historian who was already an authority for his studies on the Vargas era, and who proved his ability to bring new problems to the attention of his contemporaries thanks to extensive reading of the available documentation and his knowledge of the players of the period. Two important books about the critical years in Brazil’s transition to modernity.

1979	Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil.
Evans, Peter
An american expression of the dependency theory. A great sociological study by an honest researcher, preoccupied with the course of Brazil’s development.

1982	Books in Brazil: a history of the publishing trade.
Hallewell, Laurence
Despite the already old works of Wilson Martins, and more recent research by Marisa Lajolo, there is no equivalent for this book in Brazil. Reveals tremendous research in the most diverse sources, with great insight on the social and political role of books in Brazilian society.

1987	The Political Economy of the Brazilian State, 1889-1930.
Topik, Steve
An exemplary study by one of the greatest experts on the Brazilian and world coffee economy.

1988	The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-85.
Skidmore, Thomas
Continuation of his work on the Vargas era. Makes an honest overview of the dictatorial period that distinguishes itself for lack of equivalents or challengers from Brazil.

1991	Unequal Giants: diplomatic relations between the United States and Brazil, 1889-1930.
Smith, Joseph
A thesis that was converted into a book. Important but little known in Brazil. A complete survey of the bilateral relations between Brazil and the USA during the Old Republic.

1991	Blacks and Whites in S?o Paulo, 1888-1988.
Andrews, George Reid
Revises the classical but criticizable view from Florestan Fernandes in his A Integra??o do Negro na Sociedade de Classes.

1994	Orpheus and Power: the Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and S?o Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988.
Hanchard, Michael
Starts the phase less global and more detailed of brasilianismo. Focussing not on the big problems of society but on more specific and smaller problems that correspond with a certain politically correct vision of Brazil.

1995	Welcoming the Undesirables: Brazil and the Jewish Question.
Lesser, Jeffrey
An other representative of the young brasilianismo that focusses less on the new american academic agenda but chooses to focus on relevant questions of the formation of nationality. A lot of primary research produces a broad vision of the process of Brazil’s role in the worlds great migratory waves.

1999	Brazil: five centuries of change. Review
Skidmore, Thomas E.
To celebrate 500th anniversary of Brazil’s discovery two old brasilianistas wrote general overviews that form the actual introduction for the students of Brazil in the USA. Skidmore’s book is interprative.

1999	Brazil: A History.
Levine, Robert M.
To celebrate 500th anniversary of Brazil’s discovery two old brasilianistas wrote general overviews that form the actual introduction for the students of Brazil in the USA. Levine’s book is a documental reader.

2001	Brazil’s Second Chance: en route toward the First World.
Gordon, Lincoln
An honest analysis of Brazil’s development process in the 20th century, compared with other emerging countries. Written by a old expert on Brazil’s industrialization process who by accident also was the American ambassador during the 1964 military coup.

O Brasil dos Brasilianistas
Read more about the book that inspired this list.

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gerben@brazilnow.infopagelist