Chapters of Brazil's colonial history, 1500-1800 / Capistrano de Abreu ; translated from the Portuguese by Arthur Brakel ; with a preface by Fernando A. Novais, and an introduction by Stuart Schwartz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Abreu, João Capistrano de, 1853-1927.

Contributor:

Brakel, Arthur.

Series:

Library of Latin America

Standardized Title:

Capítulos de história colonial, 1500-1800. English

Language:

English

Portuguese

Subjects (All):

Brazil--History--To 1822.

Brazil.

History.

Physical Description:

xxxiv, 236 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1997.

Summary:

In all the history of Latin America, few historians have been so influential as the Brazilian scholar Joao Capistrano de Abreu. Now, for the first time, his central work, a classic of historical literature, appears in a sharp, clear English translation. In Chapters of Brazil's Colonial History, Capistrano de Abreu created an integrated history of Brazil in a landmark work of scholarship that is also a literary masterpiece. Breaking with previous writers, who had taken a plodding governor-after-governor approach that rested upon administration and politics, he offers a startlingly modern analysis of the past, based on the role of the economy, settlement, and the occupation of the interior. A master of Brazil's ethnographic landscape, he provides detailed sketches of daily life for Brazilians of all stripes. Capistrano de Abreu first won acclaim for a linguistic study of a Brazilian Indian language; he brings that knowledge to play as he describes the interaction between colonial settlers, African slaves, and native inhabitants, as cultures mixed in the creation of the modern nation. He also stresses the role of the physical landscape and environment in ways that presaged contemporary developments in historical scholarship.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [215]-220) and index.

ISBN:

0195103017

OCLC:

35620339