The History of Brazil

The intended audience for this series is students and interested laypeople seeking “up-to-date, concise and analytical histories.” Levine’s many productive years of scholarship, teaching, and writing on Brazilian history made him an excellent choice to author such a work. In fact, with the almost concurrent appearance of The History of Brazil (first publ l ished by Greenwood Press in 1999), his important Brazilian Legacies, The Brazil Reader (with John J. Crocitti), and Father of the Poor? Levine had marked out his place as one of the principal interpreters of modern Brazilian history writing in English. Levine’s skill at synthesizing the field’s growing literature makes The History of Brazil informative, inclusive, and up-to-date, yet accessible in its concision and brisk narrative cohesion. I should point out, however, that the St. Martin’s edition does not cover the period beyond 1998, since Levine’s death precluded further revision. It is also sadly ironic, as Levine’s commitment to democracy and social justice in Brazil surely meant he would have had much to contribute to a new edition on the limits and possibilities of the presidency of Luis Inácio da Silva.After an introductory overview, the book devotes a chapter each to the colonial period, the Empire, the First Republic, the Vargas era, and the post-Vargas period. By design, the post-WWII period receives greater emphasis, bolstered by two final chapters on the political culture and socioeconomic realities of contemporary Brazil. As the series editors sought texts that helped make sense of Brazil’s place in the world at the end of the twentieth century, an implicit larger question guiding much of The History of Brazil is quite presentist: namely, what economic structures, political institutions, and cultural traditions brought Brazil to its present circumstances? Levine answers with his customary critical analysis, balanced by his respect for cultural difference. He has a practiced eye for teasing out the larger significance of political events or economic arrangements without belaboring his point, although on rare occasion his prose can be too succinct and its exact meaning thereby unclear. Levine uses comparisons between nations to good effect, emphasizing both the singularities and commonalities of Brazil’s historical experience, first vis-à-vis Spanish America’s colonial enterprises and later in comparison to the United States.Present throughout the text are themes and topics that have characterized Levine’s writing over the last decade. For example, The History of Brazil routinely emphasizes the poor quality of life suffered by Brazil’s rural poor and urban working classes, as well as the country’s regional and cultural diversity. (Brazilianists will recognize in the last two chapters an emphasis not unlike that of Brazilian Legacies, especially.) Quite inventively, Levine also uses a selective biographic appendix as a vehicle to broaden the representativeness of historical writing on Brazil, including such individuals as favela-dwelling diarist Carolina Maria de Jesus, protofeminist/first lady Nair de Teffe, and nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian poets Antonio Gonçalves Crespo and João Cruz e Silva. Subjects such as environmental history, the Movimento Sem Terra (Landless Workers’ Movement), and human rights issues also receive scattered attention. The bibliographic essay is a shortened version of the “Suggestions for Further Reading” from The Brazil Reader; while not “comprehensive” as the series editors suggest, it is appropriate for a general readership. There is a lot to recommend this text for undergraduate classroom use, especially for courses outside history departments that demand or expect knowledge of, rather than intend to critically interrogate, Brazil’s historical background. History professors may find the greater detail of Skidmore’s Five Centuries of Change, the Cambridge History volumes edited by Leslie Bethell, or even Boris Fausto’s A Concise History of Brazil more suitable to accompany t l heir lectures. And Levine and Crocitti’s above-mentioned Brazil Reader is more conducive to promoting and engaging critical thinking and classroom discussion relating to Brazil’s past. Yet, if perhaps not the best textbook for classroom use, Brazilianists should be pleased to have the option of recommending this very worthwhile text to friends and acquaintances intending to travel to Brazil or having recently returned and wanting to learn more about the country’s political and economic heritage

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Democracy · Economic history · Empire · Literature · Narrative · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Brazilian cultural history and politics · Brazilian History and Foreign Policy · Classics · History · History of Colonial Brazil · Law