Sérgio Buarque de Holanda's Roots of Brazil is one of the iconic books on Brazilian history, society, and culture. Originally published in 1936, it appears here for the first time in an English language translation with a foreword, "Why Read Roots of Brazil Today?" by Pedro Meira Monteiro, one of the world's leading experts on Buarque de Holanda. Roots of Brazil focuses on the multiple cultural influences that forged twentieth-century Brazil, especially those of the Portuguese, the Spanish, other European colonists, Native Americans, and Africans. Buarque de Holanda argues that all of these originary influences were transformed into a unique Brazilian culture and society—a "transition zone." The book presents an understanding of why and how European culture flourished in a large, tropical environment that was totally foreign to its traditions, and the manner and consequences of this development. Buarque de Holanda uses Max Weber’s typological criteria to establish pairs of "ideal types" as a means of stressing particular characteristics of Brazilians, while also trying to understand and explain the local historical process. Along with other early twentieth-century works such as The Masters and the Slaves by Gilberto Freyre and The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil by Caio Prado Júnior, Roots of Brazil set the parameters of Brazilian historiography for a generation and continues to offer keys to understanding the complex history of Brazil. Roots of Brazil has been published in Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, German, and French. This long-awaited English translation will interest students and scholars of Portuguese, Brazilian, and Latin American history, culture, literature, and postcolonial studies.

Brazil, like some countries in Africa, has become a major destination for African American tourists seeking the cultural roots of the black Atlantic diaspora. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research as well as textual, visual, and archival sources, Patricia de Santana Pinho investigates African American roots tourism, a complex, poignant kind of travel that provides profound personal and collective meaning for those searching for black identity and heritage. It also provides, as Pinho's interviews with Brazilian tour guides, state officials, and Afro-Brazilian activists reveal, economic and political rewards that support a structured industry. Pinho traces the origins of roots tourism to the late 1970s, when groups of black intellectuals, artists, and activists found themselves drawn especially to Bahia, the state that in previous centuries had absorbed the largest number of enslaved Africans. African Americans have become frequent travelers across what Pinho calls the "map of Africanness" that connects diasporic communities and stimulates transnational solidarities while simultaneously exposing the unevenness of the black diaspora. Roots tourism, Pinho finds, is a fertile site to examine the tensions between racial and national identities as well as the gendered dimensions of travel, particularly when women are the major roots-seekers.

Over time, Brazil has evolved into a well-defined nation with a strong sense of identity. From the natural beauty of the Amazon River to the exciting resort city of Rio de Janeiro, from soccer champion Pele to classical musician Villa Lobos, Brazil is known as a distinctive, diverse country. It is recognized worldwide for its World Cup soccer team, samba music, dancing, and celebrations of Carnival. This book provides a well-rounded, brief history of Brazil that uniquely focuses on both the politics and culture of the republic. Colin MacLachlan uses a political narrative to frame the evolution of national culture and the formation of national identity. He evaluates Brazilian myths, stereotypes, and icons such as soccer and dancing as part of the historical analysis. Brazil's history is presented from its colonial roots to the present, showing how the country developed its economic and social base, then struggled to modernize and secure a respected world role. Key issues are examined: immigration, slavery and race, territorial expansion, the military, and technology and industrialization. The integration of cultural material enriches the text. It provides handy points for classroom discussion and will help students remember particular aspects Brazil's history. The book includes fascinating side-bars on various aspects of Brazilian culture, including Copacabana Beach and the rain forests. A History of Modern Brazil will inform and entertain students in courses on Brazil and modern Latin America.

The Brazilian Northeast has long been a marginalized region with a complex relationship to national identity. It is often portrayed as impoverished, backward, and rebellious, yet traditional and culturally authentic. Brazil is known for its strong national identity, but national identities do not preclude strong regional identities. In Region Out of Place, Courtney J. Campbell examines how groups within the region have asserted their identity, relevance, and uniqueness through interactions that transcend national borders. From migration to labor mobilization, from wartime dating to beauty pageants, from literacy movements to representations of banditry in film, Campbell explores how the development of regional cultural identity is a modern, internationally embedded conversation that circulated among Brazilians of every social class. Part of a region-based nationalism that reflects the anxiety that conflicting desires for modernity, progress, and cultural authenticity provoked in the twentieth century, this identity was forged by residents who continually stepped out of their expected roles, taking their region’s concerns to an international stage.

Brazil, Land of the Past scrutinizes the ideological roots of the so-called New Right in Brazil. The book traces the continuity and resilience of a system of thought based on the idea of a God-given hierarchical order to be defended against any social contract and modernizing relativization. It explains in detail how today a diverse movement — which includes actors ranging from the authoritarian Bolsonaro wing to economic liberals to the military to both Catholic and evangelical religious conservatives – assumes unanimously the ideas of this tradition as underlying premises of their political action. Though not always explicitly, this drives the self-declared “liberal-conservative” but rather anti-modernist reaction which claims to liberate an imaginary authentic “Brazil” from an aberrant “State” – and in so doing intends to preserve inherited privilege in an extremely unequal society.

Roots of Brazil's Relative Economic Backwardness explains Brazil's development level in light of modern theories regarding economic growth and international economics. It focuses on both the proximate and fundamental causes of Brazil's slow development, turning currently dominant hypotheses upside down. To support its arguments, the book presents extensive statistical analysis of Brazilian long-term development, with some new series on per capita GDP, population ethnical composition, and human capital stock, among others. It is an important resource in the ongoing debate on the causes of Latin American underdeveloped economies. - Argues that low human capital accumulation is the major source of Brazilian relative underdevelopment - Considers class conflict as the major determinant of Brazil's historically low human capital accumulation and underdevelopment - Presents new statistical information about Brazilian early development

In November 1916, a young Afro-Brazilian musician named Donga registered sheet music for the song "Pelo telefone" ("On the Telephone") at the National Library in Rio de Janeiro. This apparently simple act—claiming ownership of a musical composition—set in motion a series of events that would shake Brazil's cultural landscape. Before the debut of "Pelo telephone," samba was a somewhat obscure term, but by the late 1920s, the wildly popular song had helped to make it synonymous with Brazilian national music. The success of "Pelo telephone" embroiled Donga in controversy. A group of musicians claimed that he had stolen their work, and a prominent journalist accused him of selling out his people in pursuit of profit and fame. Within this single episode are many of the concerns that animate Making Samba, including intellectual property claims, the Brazilian state, popular music, race, gender, national identity, and the history of Afro-Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro. By tracing the careers of Rio's pioneering black musicians from the late nineteenth century until the 1970s, Marc A. Hertzman revises the histories of samba and of Brazilian national culture.