There is a vast bibliography on Brazilian history in Portuguese and English. What follows is a selection of some of the most significant works, including some classics, that have been published in English over the last several decades. They are generally organized in alignment with the chapters. The recommended readings presented chronologically are followed by select topics.
Chronological
The Making of Colonial Brazil: 1500-1694
A New Colonial Order: 1695-1821
Independent Brazil and the Consolidation of a Nation: 1822-50
Late Imperial Brazil: 1851-1889
Republican Brazil: 1889-1929
Getúlio Vargas in Power: 1930-45
Experiments in Democracy: 1946-64
Consolidating Democracy: 1994-2006
A Nation Polarized: 2006-present
Thematic
Brazil: Overviews
Culture, Film, Media, and Music
Economic: Historical and Current
Environment
Family and Society
Gender and Sexuality
Immigration and Ethnicity
Indigenous Peoples
Labor
Military
Race, Afro-Brazilians, and People of Color
Religion and Society
Rural Brazil and the Amazon
Slavery and Abolition
Urban Brazil
The Making of Colonial Brazil: 1500-1694
João Capistrano de Abreu, Chapters of Brazil?s Colonial History, 1500-1800 (Oxford University Press, 1997). Classical history of colonial Brazil.
Leslie Bethell, ed., Colonial Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 1991). A collection of essays about colonial Brazil from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Thomas M. Cohen, The Fire of Tongues: António Vieira and the Missionary Church in Brazil and Portugal (Stanford University Press, 1998). Biographical study of the Jesuit?s missionary work among Portuguese and indigenous peoples.
Jean de Léry, History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, otherwise called America. Translated by Janet Whatley (University of California Press, 1990). Sixteenth-century account of a French Huguenot?s experiences in Brazil.
Alida C. Metcalf, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, 1580-1822 (University of Texas Press, 2005). Study about wealth and land accumulation in rural São Paulo.
______. Go-betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600 (University of Texas Press, 2005). Role of intermediaries in the domination of indigenous peoples by Portuguese.
Stuart B. Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (Cambridge University Press, 1985). Comprehensive analysis of the Northeastern sugar civilization.
Laura de Mello e Souza, The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery,
and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil. Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty (University of Texas Press, 2003). Witchcraft, religious life and customs in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Brazil.
Hans Staden, Hans Staden?s True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2008). Sixteenth-century story of a German?s capture by indigenous people.
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A New Colonial Order: 1695-1821
André João Antonil, Brazil at the Dawn of the Eighteenth Century. Translated by Timothy J. Coates, completing a partial translation begun by Charles R. Boxer (Tagus Press at UMass Dartmouth, 2012). Jesuit account of the major economic activities in colonial Brazil.
Caspar van Baerie, The History of Brazil under the Governorship of Count Johan Maurits of Nassau, 1636-1644 (University of Florida Press, 2011). Translation of a seventeenth-century narrative about the Dutch colonization of northeastern Brazil.
Júnia Ferreira Furtado, Chica da Silva: A Brazilian Slave of the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Study of a former slave who gains wealth and some power in colonial Minas Gerais.
Kathleen J. Higgins, “Licentious Liberty” in a Brazilian Gold-Mining Region: Slavery, Gender, and Social Control in Eighteenth-Century Sabará, Minas Gerais (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999). Examination of slavery and gender in the Brazilian mining district.
Mary C. Karasch, Before Brasília: Frontier Life in Central Brazil (University of New Mexico Press, 2016). Study of gold mining and the occupation of colonial Brazil?s frontiers.
Kenneth Maxwell, Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal, 1750-1808 (Routledge, 2004). Classic work on the transition from colony to independence.
Kirsten Schultz, Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1821 (Routledge, 2001). Analysis of the effects of the move of the Portuguese Court to Brazil.
James E. Wadsworth, Agents of Orthodoxy: Honor, Status, and the Inquisition in Colonial Pernambuco (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007). Study of the role of the Inquisition in colonial Brazilian society.
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Independent Brazil and the Consolidation of a Nation: 1822-50
Roderick J. Barman, Brazil: The Forging of a Nation, 1798-1852 (Stanford University Press, 1988). Analysis of how Brazil remained unified after independence.
B. J. Barickman, A Bahian Counterpoint: Sugar, Tobacco, Cassava, and Slavery in the Recôncavo, 1780-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Study of foodstuffs and their relationship to export and slavery.
Judy Bieber, Power, Patronage and Political Violence: State Building on a Brazilian Frontier, 1822-1889 (University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Reinterpretation of nineteenth-century political power in the outlying regions.
Maria Odila Silva Dias, Power and Everyday Life: The Lives of Working Women in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. Translated by Ann Frost (Rutgers University Press, 1995). Study of enslaved and freedwomen in São Paulo.
Richard Graham, Feeding the City: From Street Market to Liberal Reform in Salvador, Brazil, 1780-1860 (University of Texas Press, 2010). A social and economic history.
Yuko Miki, Frontiers of Citizenship: A Black and Indigenous History of Postcolonial Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Nineteenth-century interactions among Afro-Brazilians, indigenous people, and the State.
Jeffrey C. Mosher, Political Struggle, Ideology and State Building: Pernambuco and the Construction of Brazil, 1817-1850 (University of Nebraska Press, 2008). Regional study of tensions in the consolidation of the nation.
Jeffrey D. Needell, The Party of Order: The Conservatives, the State, and Slavery in the Brazilian Monarchy, 1831-1871 (Stanford University Press, 2006). Study of political classes during the Empire.
João José Reis, Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. Translated by H. Sabrina Gledhill (University of North Carolina Press, 2003). The role of death in nineteenth-century Brazil.
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Late Imperial Brazil: 1851-1889
Roderick J. Barman, Citizen Emperor: Pedro II of Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 1999). Full-length biography of Pedro II?s rule.
Emilia Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (University of Chicago Press, 1985). Enduring interpretation.
Zephyr L. Frank, Reading Rio de Janeiro: Literature and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford University Press, 2016). Understanding Rio?s society through literary sources.
Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-century Brazil (Stanford University Press, 1990). Role of patronage networks in maintaining political stability in imperial Brazil.
Sandra Lauderdale Graham, House and Street: The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Cambridge University Press, 1988). View of intimate family life in Rio during the era.
Thomas H. Holloway, Policing Rio de Janeiro (Stanford University Press, 1993). Urban development and social control in the nineteenth-century capital.
Vitor Izecksohn, Slavery and War in the Americas: Race, Citizenship, and State Building in the United States and Brazil (University of Virginia Press, 2014). Comparative study of the U.S. Civil War and the Paraguayan War.
Roger A. Kittelson, The Practice of Politics in Postcolonial Brazil: Porto Alegre, 1845-1895 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005). Exploration of Rio Grande do Sul?s politics in the late Empire and transition to the First Republic.
Andrew J. Kirkendall, Class Mates: Male Student Culture and the Making of a Political
Class in Nineteenth-century Brazil (University of Nebraska Press, 2002). Study of the education of lawyers and elite social networks.
Hendrik Kraay, Days of National Festivity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1823-1889 (Stanford University Press, 2013). Public ritual during the Empire.
David McCreery, Frontier Goiás, 1822-1889 (Stanford University Press, 2006). Expansion of Brazil’s far western frontier.
Jeffrey D. Needell, The Sacred Cause: The Abolitionist Movement, Afro-Brazilian Mobilization, and Imperial Politics in Rio de Janeiro (Stanford University Press, 2019). Afro-Brazilian leadership, organization, and popular mobilization.
Julyan G. Peard, Race, Place, and Medicine: The Idea of the Tropics in Nineteenth-century Brazilian (Duke University Press, 1999). Development of tropical medicine in Bahia.
Martha S. Santos, Cleansing Honor with Blood: Masculinity, Violence, and Power in the Backlands of Northeast Brazil, 1845-1889 (Stanford University Press, 2012). Reinterpretation of male violence, patriarchy, and machismo in rural Brazil.
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, The Emperor?s Beard: Dom Pedro II and the Tropical Monarchy of Brazil (Hill and Wang, 2004). Exploration of the rituals, icons, art, and politics of the Emperor.
Stanley J. Stein, Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850-1900 (Princeton University Press, 1985). Classic microstudy of nineteenth-century plantation life.
Adèle Toussaint-Samson, A Parisian in Brazil: The Travel Account of a Frenchwoman in Nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro. Translated by Emma Toussaint; edited and introduced by June E. Hahner (Scholarly Resources, 2001). Travelogue of the 1850s describing slavery and social conditions.
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Republican Brazil: 1889-1929
José Murilo de Carvalho, The Formation of Souls: Imagery of the Republic in Brazil. Translated by Clifford E. Landers (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). Analysis of the national symbols related to the new republic.
Amy Chazkel, Laws of Chance: Brazil?s Clandestine Lottery and the Making of Urban Public Life (Duke University Press, 2011). Study of gambling in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Rio.
Maite Conde, Foundational Films: Early Cinema and Modernity in Brazil (University of California Press, 2018). Cinematic production from 1889 to 1930.
Todd A. Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation: Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon and the Construction of a Modern Brazil, 1906-1930 (Duke University Press, 2004). Nation building through the telegraph system and land demarcation.
______, Millennium Vision, Capitalist Reality (Duke University Press, 1991). A farmers? revolt challenging the land-holding structure.
Gilberto Hochman, The Sanitation of Brazil: Nation, State and Public Health, 1889-1930. Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty (University of Illinois Press, 2016). How rural health and sanitation policies influenced the national public health system.
Robert M. Levine, Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1897 (University of California Press, 1992). Interpretation of a popular revolt in the early Republic.
Joseph L. Love, The Revolt of the Whip (Stanford University Press, 2012). Study of 1910 naval uprising by Afro-Brazilian sailors.
Teresa A. Meade, ?Civilizing? Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City, 1889-1930 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). Analysis of urban reforms in Rio and popular reaction to them.
Cristina Mehrtens, Urban Space and National Identity in Early Twentieth-century São Paulo, Crafting Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Engineers, architects, and city planners in São Paulo?s development.
Zachary R. Morgan, Legacy of the Lash: Race and Corporal Punishment in the Braziian Navy and the Atlantic World (Indiana University Press, 2014). Trans-Atlantic nature of the 1910 sailors? uprising.
Jeffrey D. Needell, A Tropical Belle Époque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn-of-the-Century Rio de Janeiro (Cambridge University Press, 1987). Study of elite classes of Brazil?s capital.
Lisa Shaw, Tropical Travels: Brazilian Popular Performance, Transnational Encounters, and the Construction of Race (University of Texas Press, 2018). Race in popular performances in turn-of-the-twentieth century Rio.
James P. Woodard, A Place in Politics: São Paulo, Brazil from Seigneurial Republicanism to Regionalist Revolt (Duke University Press, 2009). São Paulo politics during the First Republic.
Getúlio Vargas in Power: 1930-45
Stanley E. Blake, The Vigorous Core of Our Nationality: Race and Regional Identity in Northeastern Brazil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). Regional identity from abolition to the demise of the Estado Novo.
Michael Conniff, Urban Politics in Brazil: The Rise of Populism, 1925-1945 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981). Classic interpretation of early populist politics in Rio.
Jerry Davila, Diploma of Whiteness: Race and Social Policy in Brazil, 1917-1945 (Duke University Press, 2003). Analysis of Brazilian elites? thoughts about race.
Stanley E. Hilton, Brazil and the Great Powers, 1930-1939 (University of Texas Press, 1975). Background to Brazil?s maneuvering before joining the Allies in 1942.
Robert M. Levine, Father of the Poor? Vargas and His Era (Cambridge University Press, 1998). A study of President Getúlio Vargas.
Fernando Morais, Olga, 4th ed. Translated by Ellen Watson (Grove Weidenfield, 1990). Best-selling account of Vargas?s delivery of Luís Carlos Prestes?s wife to the Nazis.
Antonio Pedro Tota, The Seduction of Brazil: The Americanization of Brazil during World War II. Translated by Lrena B. Ellis. (University of Texas Press, 2009). Study of U.S. influence in Brazil.
Daryl Williams, Culture Wars in Brazil, The First Vargas Regime, 1930-1945 (Duke University Press, 2001). Analysis of how Vargas exploited cultural symbolism to strengthen his rule.
Stefan Zweig, Brazil: Land of the Future (Ariadna Press, 2000). Classic study by an Austrian exile on race and society.
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Experiments in Democracy: 1946-64
Jerry Dávila, Hotel Trópico: Brazil and the Challenge of African Decolonization, 1950-1980 (Duke University Press, 2010). Analysis of Brazil?s turn toward Africa.
Rafael R. Ioris, Transforming Bazil: A History of National Development in the Postwar Era (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2014). Nature of Brazilian political culture and institutions in seeking economic independence.
Sarah Sarzynski, Revolution in the Terra do Sol: The Cold War in Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2018). Influence of revolutionary social movements in Northeastern Brazil prior to the 1964 coup.
Thomas E. Skidmore, Politics in Brazil (Oxford University Press, 1967). Overview that emphasizes the origins of the 1964 coup.
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Rule of the Military: 1964-85
Maria Helena Moreira Alves, State and Opposition in Military Brazil (University of Texas Press, 1985). Analysis of the authoritarian nature of the Brazilian dictatorship.
Archdiocese of São Paulo, Torture in Brazil: A Shocking Report on the Pervasive Use of Torture by Brazilian Military Governments, 1964-1979. Translated by Jaime Wright; edited with a new preface by Joan Dassin (University of Texas, Institute of Latin American Studies, 1985). Documentation of human rights violations by the dictatorship.
Benjamin A. Cowan, Securing Sex: Morality and Repression in the Making of Cold War Brazil (University of North Carolina, 2016). Analysis of right-wing ideology and practices during the military regime.
Christopher Dunn, Contracultura: Alternative Arts and Social Transformation in Authoritarian Brazil (University of North Carolina, 2016). Study of cultural contestation during the dictatorship.
James N. Green, Exile within Exiles: Herbert Daniel, Gay Brazilian Revolutionary (Duke University Press, 2018). Biography of a medical student turned guerrilla leader, exile, and then AIDS activist.
Martha Huggins, Mika Haritos-Tatouros, and Philip G. Zimbardo. Violence Workers: Police Torturers and Murderers Reconstruct Brazilian Atrocities (University of California Press, 2002). Singular study of police brutality in Brazil.
Margaret E. Keck, The Worker?s Party and Democratization in Brazil (Yale University Press, 1992). Analysis of the emergence of a new labor party during the dictatorship.
Andrew J. Kirkendall, Paulo Freire & the Cold War Politics of Literacy (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Study of Freire?s international pedagogical activities during exile.
Victoria Langland, Speaking of Flowers: Student Movements and the Making and Remembering of 1968 in Military Brazil (Duke University Press, 2013). History of student activism and the memories surrounding 1968.
Lina Penna Sattamini, A Mother?s Cry: A Memoir of Politics, Prison, and Torture under the Brazilian Military Dictatorship. Translated by Rex P. Nielson and James N. Green, with introduction by James N. Green (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010). A mother?s attempt to locate her son arrested and tortured by the dictatorship.
Kenneth P. Serbin, Secret Dialogues: Church-State Relations, Torture, and Social Justice in Authoritarian Brazil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000). Investigation of contacts between the military rulers and higher clergy.
______, From Revolution to Power in Brazil: How Radical Leftists Embraced Capitalism and Struggled with Leadership (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019). Study of how former revolutionaries adapted to capitalism in democratic Brazil.
Thomas E. Skidmore, Politics of Military Rule in Brazil (Oxford University Press, 1988). Classic history of the dictatorship.
Anne-Marie Smith, A Forced Agreement: Press Acquiescence to Censorship in Brazil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997). Study of press censorship during the military regime.
Alfred Stepan, ed., Democratizing Brazil (Oxford University Press, 1989). Scholarly debates about the nature of the transition to democracy.
Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers (University of Chicago Press, 1990). Story of how human rights activists documented torture.
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Redemocratization: 1985-1994
Barry Ames, The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil (University of Michigan Press, 2001). Analysis of voting patterns of national legislature.
Christopher Gibson, Movement-Driven Development: The Politics of Health and Democracy in Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2019). Study of the transformation of the health system through grassroots pressure.
Scott Mainwaring, Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil (Stanford University Press, 1999). Illumination of the varied political alliances following dictatorship.
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Consolidating Democracy: 1994-2006
Lee J. Alston, Marcus Andre Melo, Bernardo Mueller, and Carlos Pereira, eds. Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change (Princeton University Press, 2016). Examination of factors explaining recent economic development.
Rebecca Atencio, Memory?s Turn: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil (University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). Cultural study of how repression was considered in post-dictatorial Brazil.
Guianpaolo Baiocchi ed., Radicals in Power: The Workers? Party (PT) and Experiences of Urban Democracy in Brazil (Zed Books, 2003). Consideration of the inner workings of the Workers? Party.
Richard Bourne, Lula of Brazil: The Story So Far (University of California Press, 2008). Biography of labor leader and president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir (Public Affairs, 2006). First-person account of governing Brazil.
Kia Lilly Caldwell, Health Equity in Brazil: Intersections of Gender, Race, and Policy (University of Illinois Press, 2017). How feminist and black movements have fought for changes in women?s health.
John D. French, Lula and his Politics of Cunning: From Metalworker to President of Brazil (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). Biography of Brazil?s first working-class president.
Benjamin Junge, Cynical Citizenship: Gender, Regionalism, and Political Subjectivity in Porto Alegre, Brazil (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Anthropological study of grassroots community leaders in southern Brazil.
Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power, Democratic Brazil: Actors, Institutions, and Processes (Pittsburgh, 2000). Politics in post-military Brazil.
Bryan McCann, The Throes of Democracy: Brazil since 1989 (Zed Books, 2008). Overview of recent Brazilian history.
Goetz Ottmann, Democracy in the Making: Municipal Reforms, Civil Society, and the Brazilian Workers’ Party (Nova Science Publishers, 2009). Case study of local activities of the largest leftwing party.
Timothy J. Power, The Political Right in Postauthoritarian Brazil: Elites, Institutions and Democracy (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000). Study of the civilian rightwing.
David J. Samuels and Cesar Zucco, Partisans, Antipartisans and Nonpartisans: Voting Behavior in Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Partisan politics and the Workers? Party.
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A Nation Polarized: 2006-present
Aaron Ansell, Zero Hunger: Political Culture and Antipoverty Policy in Northeast Brazil (The University of North Carolina Press, 2014). Study of the social programs during the Workers? Party government.
Mads Bjelke Damgaard, Media Leaks and Corruption in Brazil: The Infostorm of Impeachment and the Lava-Jato Scandal (Routledge, 2019). How scandals become political weapons through media outlets.
Conor Foley, In Spite of You: Bolsonaro and the New Brazilian Resistance (OR Books, 2019). Anthology analyzing Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro.
Peter R. Kingstone and Timothy J. Power, Democratic Brazil Divided, eds. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). Discussion of recent political polarization.
Ben Ross Schneider, ed. New Order and Progress: Development and Democracy in Brazil (Oxford University Press, 2016). Collection asking why Brazil did not become a rising economic star.
Brian Wampler, Natasha Borges Sugiyama, Michael Touchton, eds., Democracy at Work: Pathways to Well-being in Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Essays on how the return to democracy has improved people?s everyday lives.
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Brazil: Overviews
Durval Muniz de Albuquerque, Jr., The Invention of the Brazilian Northeast. Translated by Jerry Dennis Metz (Duke University Press, 2014). Analysis of ways intellectuals created stereotypes that ?invented? the Northeast as a sociocultural region.
Peter Beattie, The Human Tradition in Modern Brazil (Scholarly Resources, 2004). Collection featuring personalities from diverse sectors of society.
Ronald H. Chilcote, Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-century Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Study of different progressive trends in Brazilian thought.
Marshall C. Eakin, Becoming Brazilian: Race and National Identity in Twentieth-century Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Synthetic study of modern Brazil.
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Roots of Brazil. Translated by G. Harve Summ. Foreword by Pedro Meira Montiero (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). Classic essay on national culture.
Darcy Ribeiro, The Brazilian People: The Formation and Meaning of Brazil. Translated from the Portuguese by Gregory Rabassa (University Press of Florida, 2000). Reflections on race relations and social conditions.
Darlene J. Sadlier, Brazil Imagined: 1500 to the Present (University of Texas Press, 2008). Comprehensive examination on how Brazil has been seen by others.
Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling, Brazil: A Biography (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018). Sweeping and dense history of Brazil.
Daryle Williams, Amy Chazkel, and Paulo Knauss, eds. The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press, 2016). Collection of primary sources on Rio.
Joel Wolfe, Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2010). Twentieth-century history of Brazil through the lens of the automobile.
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Culture, Film, Media, and Music
Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez, Creating Carmen Miranda: Race, Camp and Transnational Stardom (Vanderbilt University Press: 2016). Study of the iconic Brazilian singer and movie personality.
John Burdick, The Color of Sound: Race, Religion, and Music in Brazil (New York University Press, 2016). Anthropological study of ideas about race, racism, and racial identity in the Afro-Brazilian music scene.
Ruy Castro, Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music that Seduced the World. Translated by Lysa Salsbury (A Cappella Books, 2000). Narrative of the history of the famed musical genre.
Darién J. Davis, White Face, Black Mask: Africaneity and the Early Social History of Popular Music in Brazil (Michigan State University Press, 2009). Influence of African culture on Brazilian music.
Stephanie Dennison and Lisa Shaw, Popular Cinema in Brazil, 1930-2001 (Manchester University, 2004). Important study about Brazilian film.
Christopher Dunn, Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (University of North Carolina Press, 2001). Sympathetic treatment of musical and cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
David William Foster, Gender and Society in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema (University of Texas Press, 1999). Representations of gender and sexuality in Brazilian film.
Gustavo P. T. Furtado, Documentary Filmmaking in Contemporary Brazil: Cinematic Archives of the Present (Oxford University Press, 2019). Documentary filmmaking from the transition to democracy to the present.
Marc A. Hertzman, Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2013). Study about the historic importance of samba.
Randal Johnson and Robert Stam, ed. Brazilian Cinema (Columbia University Press, 1995). Comprehensive collection of articles from leading scholars.
Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas George Caracas Garcia, Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular Music (Indiana University Press, 2005). Race, class, and nineteenth-century music.
Bryan McCann, Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil. (Duke University Press, 2004). Analysis of the power of radio in forging popular musical forms.
Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha, The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil (Temple University Press, 1998). A broad survey of Brazilian music.
Charles A. Perrone and Christopher Dunn, eds. Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization (University of Florida Press, 2001). Exploration of Brazilian music and its international appeal.
Caetano Veloso, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil. Translated by Isabel de Sena; edited by Barbara Einzig (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002). Memoir of one of Brazil?s most talented and lasting singers and composers.
Hermano Vianna, The Mystery of Samba: Popular Music and National Identity (University of North Carolina Press, 1999). Consideration of identity through music and culture.
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Economic: Historical and Current
Werner Baer, The Brazilian Economy: Growth and Development, 7th ed. (Lynne Reiner Publications, 2014). Basic reference work.
Mauricio Font, Coffee and Transformation in São Paulo, Brazil (Lexington Books, 2010). Economic history of coffee production in early twentieth-century São Paulo.
Zephyr L. Frank, Dutra?s World: Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro (University of New Mexico, 2004). Socio-economic analysis of slaveholding, wealth, and family.
Celso Furtado, The Economic Growth of Brazil: A Survey from Colonial to Modern Times (University of California Press, 1971). Benchmark interpretation of the fundamentals of the Brazilian economy from colonial times through the First Republic.
Anne G. Hanley, Native Capital: Financial Institutions and Economic Development in São Paulo, Brazil, 1850-1920 (Stanford University Press, 2005). Study of the development of capitalism in São Paulo.
______, The Public Good and the Brazilian State: Municipal Finance and the Provision of Public Services in São Paulo, Brazil 1822-1930 (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Expansive consideration of local São Paulo finances during the Empire and First Republic.
Eugene Ridings, Business Interest Groups in Nineteenth-century Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 1994). Economic history of imperial Brazil.
William R. Summerhill, Order against Progress: Government, Foreign Investment, and Railroads in Brazil, 1854-1913 (Stanford University Press, 2003). Railroad policy, finance and expansion of transportation.
______, Inglorious Revolution: Political Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Financial Underdevelopment in Imperial Brazil (Yale University Press, 2015). Study of public debt and financial systems.
Steven Topik, The Political Economy of the Brazilian State, 1889-1930 (University of Texas Press, 1987). Crucial to understanding the growing role of the state.
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Environment
Warren Dean, With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (University of California Press, 1995). Study of the devastation of the endangered Atlantic forest.
Kathryn Hochstetler and Margaret E. Keck, Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society (Duke University Press, 2007). History of the emergence of the environmental movement.
Shawn William Miller, Fruitless Trees: Portuguese Conservation and Brazil?s Colonial Timber (Stanford University Press, 2000). Timber and lumber extraction policies under colonial rule.
Thomas E. Rogers, The Deepest Wounds: A Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). Study of sugar production and the environment.
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Family and Society
Dain Edward Borges, The Family in Bahia, Brazil, 1870-1945 (Stanford University Press, 1992). Analysis of elite social networks in Salvador, Bahia.
Tobias Hecht, At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Anthropological examination.
Linda Lewin, Surprise Heirs, vol.1 Illegitimacy, Patrimonial Rights, and Legal Nationalism in Luso-Brazilian Inheritance, 1750-182; vol. 2 Illegitimacy, Inheritance Rights, and Public Power in the Formation of Imperial Brazil, 1822-1889 (Stanford University Press, 2003). Family relations, inheritance, and gender in colonial and imperial Brazil.
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Gender and Sexuality
Severino João Medeiros Albuquerque, Tentative Transgressions: Homosexuality, AIDS, and the Theater in Brazil (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). Impact of HIV/AIDS on cultural productions.
Andrea Stevenson Allen, Violence and Desire in Brazilian Lesbian Relationships (Palgrave McMillian, 2015). Anthropological examination of female same-sex relations in Salvador, Bahia.
Sonia E. Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women?s Movements in Transition Politics (Princeton University Press, 1990). Analysis of the emergence of a feminist movement.
Roderick J. Barman, Princess Isabel of Brazil: Gender and Power in the Nineteenth
Century (Scholarly Resources, 2002). Biography of the heir to the Brazilian throne.
Susan K. Besse, Restructuring Patriarchy: The Modernization of Gender Inequality in Brazil, 1914-1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 1996). Historical survey of shifting Brazilian gender roles.
Sueann Caulfield, In Defense of Honor: Sexual Morality, Modernity, and Nation in Early-Twentieth-Century Brazil (Duke University Press, 2000). Study of popular moral attitudes as reflected in court decisions.
Rafael de la Dehesa, Queering the Public Sphere in Mexico and Brazil: Sexual Rights Movements in Emerging Democracies (Duke University Press, 2010). Comparative examination of the LGBT movement in Mexico and Brazil.
James N. Green, Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil (University of Chicago Press, 1999). Social history of male homosexuality in Rio and São Paulo.
June E. Hahner, Emancipating the Female Sex: The Struggle for Women?s Rights in Brazil, 1850-1940 (Duke University Press, 1990). Pioneering study of the first feminist and suffragist movements.
Don Kulick, Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes (University of Chicago Press, 1998). Anthropological analysis of constructions of non-normative sexuality.
Muriel Nazzari, Disappearance of the Dowry: Women, Families, and Social Change in São Paulo, Brazil (1600-1900) (Stanford University Press, 1991). Study of the changing status and role of women.
Richard Parker, Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil. (Beacon Press, 1991). An analysis of Brazilian sexuality.
______, Beneath the Equator: Cultures of Desire, Male Homosexuality, and Emerging Gay Communities in Brazil (Routledge, 1999). Contemporary gay male culture.
Cecília Macdowell Santos, Women?s Police Stations: Gender, Violence, and Justice in São Paulo, Brazil (Palgrave, 2005). An examination of feminists, the State, and domestic violence.
Kristin N. Wylie, Party Institutionalization and Women’s Representation in Democratic Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Study of efforts and obstacles for women?s participation in politics.
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Immigration and Ethnicity
Sarah A. LeBaron von Baeyer, Living Transnationally between Japan and Brazil: Routes Beyond Roots (Lexington Books, 2020). Ethnographic study of Japanese-Brazilian labor migrants and their families.
Thomas H. Holloway, Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in São Paulo 1886-1934 (University of North Carolina Press, 1980). How Italian immigrants succeeded in building an asset base.
Mishe Klein, Kosher Feijoada and other Paradoxes of Jewish Life in São Paulo (University Press of Florida, 2012). Anthropological study of São Paulo?s largest Jewish community.
Jeffrey Lesser, Welcoming the Undesirables (Los Angeles, 1995). Pioneering study of Jewish migration to Brazil.
______, Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil (Durham, 1999). Analysis of race and identity formations of Syrian-Lebanese and Japanese immigrants and their descendents.
______, A Discontented Diaspora Japanese Brazilians and the Meaning of Ethnic Militancy, 1960-1980 (Duke University Press, 2007). Exploration of how Brazilians understand Japanese-Brazilians identities and their role in society.
Mieko Nishida, Diaspora and Identity: Japanese Brazilians in Brazil and Japan (University of Hawai?i Press, 2018). Study of the complex relation of Nipo-Brazilians who return to Japan to find work.
Oswaldo Truzzi, Syrian and Lebanese patrícios in São Paulo: From the Levant to Brazil. Translated by Ramon J. Stern (University of Illinois Press, 2018). Social history of Middle Eastern immigrants.
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Indigenous Peoples
Seth Garfield, Indigenous Struggle at the Heart of Brazil: State Policy, Frontier Expansion, and the Xavante Indians, 1937-1988 (Duke University Press, 2001). Study of government?s indigenous policies.
Tracy Devine Guzmán, Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity after Independence (The University of North Carolina Press, 2013). Analysis of the romantic representation of indigenous people in history, politics, and cultural production.
John Hemming, Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians (Harvard University Press, 1978). Classic work on Portuguese colonization of indigenous lands.
______, Amazon Frontier: The Defeat of the Brazilian Indians (Harvard University Press, 1987). Analysis of the annihilation of indigenous peoples.
Hal Langfur, The Forbidden Lands: Colonial Identity, Frontier Violence, and the Persistence of Brazil’s Eastern Indians, 1750-1830 (Stanford University Press, 2006). Study of tensions between Portuguese and indigenous peoples in Minas Gerais.
John M. Monteiro, Blacks of the Land: Indian Slavery, Settler Society, and the Portuguese Colonial Enterprise in South America. Edited and translated by James Woodard, Barbara Weinstein. (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Classical study of indigenous slavery.
Dave Treece, Exiles, Allies, Rebels: Brazil?s Indianist Movement, Indigenist Politics, and the Imperial Nation-State (Greenwood Press, 2000). Policies toward and literary representations of indigenous people.
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Labor
Kenneth Paul Erickson, The Brazilian Corporative State and Working-Class Politics. (University of California Press, 1977). Study of labor in the early 1960s.
John French, The Brazilian Workers? ABC: Class Conflict and Alliances in Modern São Paulo (University of North Carolina Press, 1992). Analysis of labor relations, 1900-1953.
______. Drowning in Laws: Labor Law and Brazilian Political Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2004). Study of Brazilian labor law.
Biorn Maybury-Lewis, The Politics of the Possible: The Brazilian Rural Workers? Trade Union Movement, 1964-1985 (Temple University Press, 1992). Investigation of the mobilization of rural workers.
Anthony W. Pereira, The End of the Peasantry: The Rural Labor Movement in Northeast Brazil, 1961-1988 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997). Overview of rural labor demands.
Salvador A. M. Sandoval, Social Change and Labor Unrest in Brazil since 1945 (Westview Press, 1993). Study of state control over unions and labor militancy.
Cliff Welch, The Seed Was Planted: The São Paulo Roots of Brazil’s Rural Labor Movement, 1924-1964 (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999). São Paulo?s rural labor movement.
Barbara Weinstein, For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920-1964 (University of North Carolina Press, 1996). Social and labor policy in the nation?s economic powerhouse.
Joel Wolfe, Working Women, Working Men: São Paulo and the Rise of Brazil’s Industrial Working Class, 1900-1955 (Duke University Press, 1993). Study of the labor actions of textile and metal workers.
Military
Peter M. Beattie, The Tribute of Blood: Army, Honor, Race, and Nation in Brazil, 1864-1945 (Duke University Press, 2000). Modernization of the Brazilian army and its role in nation building.
Maud Chirio, Politics in Uniform: Military Officers and Dictatorship in Brazil, 1960-80 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). Study of the internal dynamics of the armed forces.
Wendy Hunter, Eroding Military Influence in Brazil: Politicians Against Soldiers (University of North Carolina Press,1997). Analysis of declining role of the military after the dictatorship.
Hendrik Kraay, Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independence-Era Brazil, Bahia, 1790s-1840s (Stanford University Press, 2001). The formation of the army, race, and the State in Bahia.
Frank D. McCann, Soldiers of the Pátria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889-1937 (Stanford University Press, 2004). Army, ideology, and revolutionary politics.
Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics (Princeton University Press, 1971). The Brazilian military leading up to the 1964 coup.
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Race, Afro-Brazilians, and People of Color
Paulina L. Alberto, Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-century Brazil. (University of North Carolina Press, 2011). Examination of the development of Afro-Brazilian intellectuals.
Roger Bastide, The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpenetration of Civilizations. Translated by Helen Sebba (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). Premier study of Afro-Brazilian religions.
George Reid Andrews, Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1991). Early empirically-based studies of racism in the workplace.
Kia Lilly Caldwell, Negras in Brazil: Re-envisioning Black Women, Citizenship, and the Politics of Identity (Rutgers University Press, 2007). Study of political activism of Afro-Brazilian women.
John F. Collins, Revolt of the Saints: Memory and Redemption in the Twilight of Brazilian Racial Democracy (Duke University Press, 2015). Examination of the contested removals of inhabitants from Salvador?s site of Afro-Brazilian history.
Carl N. Degler, Neither Black nor White (MacMillian, 1971). Analysis of the link between slavery and twentieth-century race relations.
Elizabeth Farfán-Santos, Black Bodies, Black Rights: The Politics of Quilombolismo in Contemporary Brazil (University of Texas Press, 2016). Examination of Black identities, history, and quilombos.
Jessica Graham, Shifting the Meaning of Democracy: Race, Politics, and Culture in the United States and Brazil (University of California Press, 2019). Comparative historical analysis of the redefinition of nation and democracy in racial terms.
Michael George Hanchard, Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, 1945-1988 (Princeton University Press, 1994). Insights into Afro-Brazilian-based social movements.
Rachel E. Harding, A Refuge in Thunder: Candomblé and Alternative Spaces of Blackness (Indiana University Press, 2003). How Afro-Brazilians created alternative spaces for themselves.
David Hellwig, ed., African-American Reflections on Brazil?s Racial Paradise (Temple University Press, 1992). Study of historical reactions of African-Americans to Brazilian race relations.
Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families (University of Texas Press, 2015). Examination of racial stigma among Afro-Brazilians.
Scott Ickes, African-Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil (University Press of Florida, 2013). Analysis of Black culture in Salvador, Bahia.
Tiffany D. Joseph. Race on the Move: Brazilian Migrants and the Global Reconstruction of Race (Stanford University Press, 2015). Study of migration between the two countries and the changing understanding of race relations among Brazilians.
Robert M. Levine and José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, The Life and Death of Carolina Maria de Jesus (University of New Mexico Press, 1995). Biography of a famous Afro-Brazilian writer.
Sean T. Mitchell, Constellations of Inequality: Space, Race, and Utopia in Brazil (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Study of the displacement of rural Afro-Brazilians to enlarge a satellite launching site.
Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour, The Politics of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Behavior in Contemporary Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Intersectional analysis of the experience of race on Afro-Brazilian political behavior in Salvador, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro.
Elisa Larkin Nascimento, The Sorcery of Color: Identity, Race, and Gender in Brazil
(Temple University Press, 2007). Study of interactions of race and gender in Brazilian society.
Emanuelle K. F. Oliveira-Monte, Barack Obama is Brazilian: (Re)signifying Race Relations in Contemporary Brazil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Cultural impact of Barack Obama?s presidency on Brazil.
Okezi Otovo, Progressive Mothers, Better Babies: Race, Public Health and the State in Brazil, 1850-1945 (University of Texas Press, 2016). Examination of transformation in public health delivery in Salvador, Bahia.
Tianna S. Paschel, Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and Ethno-racial Rights in Colombia and Brazil (Princeton University Press, 2016). Comparative study of the emergence of Black activism.
Vânia Penha-Lopes, Confronting Affirmative Action in Brazil: University Quota Students and the Quest for Racial Justice (Lexington Books, 2017). Analysis of effectiveness of affirmative action programs.
Keisha-Khan Y. Perry, Black Women against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil. (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). Anthropological study of the fight against gentrification in Salvador, Bahia.
Patricia de Santana Pinho, Mama Africa: Reinventing Blackness in Bahia (Duke University Press, 2010). Examination of the meanings of Africa in Bahian constructions of blackness.
João José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes. Freedom on a Thread: The History of Quilombos in Brazil (Diasporic Africa Press, 2016). Important study of communities of runaway slaves.
Livio Sansone, Blackness without Ethnicity: Constructing Race in Brazil (Palgrave MacMillian, 2003). An examination of race with deconstructions of racial terminology.
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, The Spectacle of the Races: Scientists, Institutions, and the Race Question in Brazil, 1870-1930. Translated by Leland Guyer (Hill and Wang, 1999). Study of the development of ideas about race within Brazilian scientific institutions.
Micol, Seigel, Uneven Encounters: Making Race and Nation in Brazil and the United States (Duke University Press 2009). Transnational study of race in Brazil.
Edward E. Telles, Race in Another America: The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil (Princeton University Press, 2004). Comprehensive consideration of race relations.
Thomas E. Skidmore, Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought (Oxford University Press, 1974). Analysis of intellectual controversies over race among intellectuals between 1870 and 1945.
Maya Talmon-Chvaicer, The Hidden History of Capoeira: A Collision of Cultures in the Brazilian Battle Dance (University of Texas Press, 2008). History and practice of the Afro-Brazilian martial arts.
Frances Winddance Twine, Racism in a Racial Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in Brazil (Rutgers University Press, 1998). Examination of the discourse and practice of racism.
Barbara Weinstein, The Color of Modernity: São Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2015). Magisterial study of how São Paulo has understood its role in relationship to the rest of the country.
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Religion and Society
Diana De G. Brown, Umbanda, Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil, 2nd ed. (Columbia University Press, 1994). Study of Afro-Brazilian religious networks.
John Burdick, Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil?s Religious Arena (University of California Press, 1993). Analysis of the progressive wing of the Catholic Church.
______, Blessed Anastacia: Women, Race, and Popular Christianity in Brazil (Taylor and Francis, 2012). Examination of black consciousness embedded in popular Christianity.
Carol Ann Drogus, Women, Religion, and Social change in Brazil’s Popular Church (University of Notre Dame Press, 1997). Examination of progressive grassroots religious movement.
Rowan Ireland, Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991). Explains the intersection of these two phenomena.
Ruth Landes, The City of Women, 2nd edition, with an introduction by Sally Cole (University of New Mexico, 1994). American anthropologist?s view of Afro-Brazilian women in candomblé ceremonies based on research conducted in Bahia in the late 1930s.
Paul C. Johnson, Secrets, Gossip and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé (Oxford University Press, 2002). Analysis of how a secretive religion becomes public.
Scott Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985 (Stanford University Press, 1986). Classic account of the history of the Brazilian Catholic Church.
Cecília Loreto Mariz, Pentecostals and Christian Base Communities in Brazil (Temple University Press, 1994). Study of conservative and progressive religious movements.
Carole A. Myscofski, Amazons, Wives, Nuns, and Witches: Women and the Catholic Church in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822 (University of Texas Press, 2013). Examination of women and region in colonial Brazil.
Robin Nagle, Claiming the Virgin: The Broken Promise of Liberation Theology in Brazil. (Routledge, 1997). A critique of liberation theology and its effects.
Martijn Oosterbaan, Transmitting the Spirit: Religious Conversion, Media, and Urban Violence in Brazil (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017). An examination of Pentecostalism, media, society, and culture.
Patricia Pessar, From Fanatics to Folk: Brazilian Millenarianism and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2004). Study of popular religion.
Kenneth P. Serbin, Needs of the Heart: A Social and Cultural History of Brazil’s Clergy and Seminaries (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). Transformations within the mid-twentieth-century Brazilian Catholic Church.
Amy Erica Smith, Religion and Brazilian Democracy: Mobilizing the People of God (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Study of Evangelical Christian and conservative Catholic campaigns against recent social and cultural changes.
Mariza de Carvalho Soares, People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-century Rio de Janeiro (Duke University Press, 2011). Afro-Brazilian religiosity in late colonial Rio.
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Rural Brazil and the Amazon
Antoine Acker, Volkswagen in the Amazon: The Tragedy of Global Development in Modern Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Study of a multinational endeavor in the Amazon.
Jacob Blanc, Before the Flood: The Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil (Duke University Press, 2020). Effects of building a hydro-electric dam on the Brazilian-Paraguayan border.
Miguel Carter, ed. Challenging Social Inequality: The Landless Rural Workers? Movement and Agrarian Reform in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2015). Essays on rural mobilizations over access to land.
Seth Garfield, In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region (Duke University Press, 2013). Examination of rubber extraction in the Amazon during World War II.
Susanna B. Hecht, The Scramble for the Amazon and the ?Lost Paradise? of Euclides da Cunha (The University of Chicago Press, 2013). Analysis of early twentieth-century writer?s accounts of the Amazon.
Heather R. Roll, Amazonian Routes: Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2014). Study of eighteenth-century indigeous Amazon.
Rebecca Tarlau, Occupying Schools, Occupying Land: How the Landless Workers Movement Transformed Brazilian Education (Oxford University Press, 2019). How rural activists pressured the government to implement their educational program in public schools and universities.
Barbara Weinstein, The Amazon Rubber Boom, 1850-1920 (Stanford University Press, 1983). Pioneering treatment of the economic expansion of an important export crop during the Empire and early Republic.
Angus Wright and Wendy Wolford, To Inherit the Earth: The Landless Movement and the Struggle for a New Brazil (Food First Books, 2003). Study of the landless peasants? movement in different parts of the country.
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Slavery and Abolition
Celia Maria Marinho de Azevedo, Abolitionism in the United States and Brazil: A Comparative Perspective (Garland, 1995). Cross-national analysis of anti-slavery movements.
José Carlos Barbosa, Slavery and Protestant Missions in Imperial Brazil: The Black Does Not Enter the Church, He Peeks (University Press of America, 2008). Why Protestant missionaries in Brazil remained silent on the issue of slavery.
Kim D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador (Rutgers University Press, 1998). Examination of different strategies to fight racism.
Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God?s Fire, 2nd ed. (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994). Comprehensive anthology of sources on Brazilian slavery.
Roquinaldo Ferreira, Cross-cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Study of the Atlantic slave trade.
Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (University of California Press, 1986). Classic work on patriarchal society, slavery, and its legacy.
Dale Torston Graden, From Slavery to Freedom in Brazil: Bahia, 1835-1900 (University of New Mexico Press, 2006). Study of abolition in Brazil?s largest Afro-Brazilian center.
Sandra Lauderdale Graham, Caetana Says No: Women’s Stories from a Brazilian Slave Society (Cambridge University Press, 2002). The interplay of gender, race, and social hierarchy in nineteenth-century Brazil.
Walter Hawthorne, From Africa to Brazil: Culture, Identity, and an Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2010). The links between Africa and Brazil during slave trade.
Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1850 (Princeton University Press, 1987). Richly researched study with previously unused sources.
Elizabeth W. Kiddy, Blacks of the Rosary: Memory and History in Minas Gerais, Brazil
(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005). Formation of Afro-Brazilian lay brotherhoods in the late colonial period.
Francisco Luna, Slavery and the Economy of São Paulo, 1750-1850 (Stanford University Press, 2003). Economic history of slavery in São Paulo.
Nancy Naro, A Slave?s Place, a Master’s World: Fashioning Dependency in Rural Brazil (Continuum, 2000). Economics of slavery and the agency of nineteenth-century agricultural workers.
Mieko Nishida, Slavery and Identity: Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Salvador, Brazil, 1808-1888 (Indiana University Press, 2003). Study of slavery in nineteenth-century Bahia.
Katia Mattos de Queirós, To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550-1888 (Rutgers University Press, 1986). Reconstruction of Brazilian slavery?s human dimension.
Ian Read, The Hierarchies of Slavery in Santos, Brazil, 1822-1888 (Stanford University Press, 2012). Study of slavery in an important port city.
João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Picture of the Muslim religious impetus for slave revolt in Brazil.
A. J. R. Russell-Wood, Slavery and Freedom in Colonial Brazil (Oneworld Publications, 2002). Portrait of the lives of enslaved and free people of color.
Stuart B. Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery. Urbana: (University of Illinois Press, 1996). Collection of essays about the economics, politics, and culture of slavery.
James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003). Treatment of the records of African slaves in the Portuguese colonial world, developing a panoramic view of origins and locations.
Robert Brent Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil (Anteneum, 1992). Study of the process of slave emancipation.
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Urban Brazil
Maria Helena Moreira Alves and Philip Evanson. Living in the Crossfire: Favela Residents, Drug Dealers, and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro (Temple University Press, 2011). Contemporary policies and practices related to drugs and police violence.
Jaime Amparo Alves, The Anti-Black City: Police Terror and Black Urban Life in Brazil (University of Minnesota Press, 2018). How the state controls urban Afro-Brazilian populations deemed dangerous.
Enrique Desmond Arias, Drugs & Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: Trafficking, Social Networks, & Public Safety (University of North Carolina Press, 2006). Effects of drug trafficking on Brazilian democracy.
Teresa Pires do Rio Caldeira, City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São
Paulo (University of California Press, 2000). Fear, crime, and social stratification in urban Brazil.
Bruno Carvalho, Porous City: A Culture History of Rio de Janeiro (from 1810 onward). (Liverpool University Press, 2013). Interdisciplinary study of urban Rio.
Brodwyn Fischer, A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Stanford University Press, 2008). Examination of poor people?s fight for rights.
Paul Fontes, Migration of the Making of Urban São Paulo (Duke University Press, 2016). Study of northeastern migration to Brazil?s industrial center.
Gilberto Freyre, The Mansions and the Shanties: The Making of Modern Brazil (University of California Press, 1986). Extension of classical analysis to the urban sector.
Robert Gay, Popular Organization and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro.: A Tale of Two Favelas (Temple University Press, 1994). Analysis of the political processes in two shantytowns.
Marshall Eakin, Tropical Capitalism: the Industrialization of Belo Horizonte, Brazil (Palgrave, 2001). Socio-economic study of an important Brazilian city.
Donna Goldstein, Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown (University of California Press, 2003). Exploration of a Rio favela.
James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia (University of Chicago Press, 1989). Analysis of the social cross-currents of life in the capital city.
______. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil (Princeton University Press, 2008). Anthropological study of popular participation in urban peripheries.
Erika Robb Larkins, The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil (University of California Press, 2015). Ethnographic study of the political economy of violence in a Rio favela.
Bryan McCann, Hard Times in the Marvelous City: From Dictatorship to Democracy in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Duke University Press, 2013). Historical account of organizing in Rio?s poorest communities.
Maureen O?Dougherty, Consumption Intensified: The Politics of Middle-Class Daily Life in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2002). Effects of inflation on the middle class.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (Los Angeles, 1982). Penetrating first-hand study of favela life in Recife.
Luiz Eduardo Soares, Rio de Janeiro: Extreme City. Translated by Anthony Doyle (Allen Lane, 2016). A portrait of a city of contrasts and its history of conflict and corruption.
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U.S.-Brazilian Relations
Jan Knippers Black, United States Penetration of Brazil (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977). Analysis on U.S. covert and overt machinations.
James N. Green, ?We Cannot Remain Silent?: Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States, 1964-85 (Duke University Press, 2009). Study of the emergence of a U.S. human rights movement denouncing torture.
Mônica Hirst, The United States and Brazil: a Long Road of Unmet Expectations (Routledge, 2005). An overview of Brazil-U.S. relations since the 1980s.
Martha Huggins, Political Policing: The United States and Latin America. (Duke University Press, 1998). Examination of the U.S. government?s support of public security forces in Brazil and other Latin American countries.
Ruth Leacock. Requiem for Revolution: The United States and Brazil, 1961-1969 (Kent State University Press, 1990). Analysis of U.S. interference in Brazilian internal affairs.
Frank D. McCann Jr., The Brazilian-American Alliance (Princeton University Press, 1973). U.S.-Brazilian relations in the pre-world War II era.
Sidnei J. Munhoz and Francisco Carlos Teixeira da Silva, eds. Brazil-U.S. Relations in the 20th and 21st Centuries. (Editora da Universidade Estadual de Maringá, 2013). Collection of articles from leading scholars in this field.
Joseph Smith, Unequal Giants: Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Brazil, 1889-1930 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991). U.S.-Brazilian relations during the First Republic.
Steven Topik, Trade and Gunboats: The United State and Brazil in the Age of Empire (Stanford University Press, 1996). Examination of commercial treaties and pacts between the two countries.
Alexandre Busko Valim, Brazil, the United States, and the Good Neighbor Policy: The Triumph of Persuasion during World War II (Lexington Books, 2019). Study of the complexities of U.S.-Brazilian relations during the Second World War.
W. Michael Weis, Cold Warriors & Coups D?état: Brazilian-American Relations,
1945-64 (University of New Mexico Press, 1993). Analysis of U.S.-Brazilian relations during the first half of the Cold War.