Nature and Historiography in Brazil, 1937-1945

Abstract

Three seminal Brazilian authors published some of their most important works in the period in which Brazil lived under the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo (1937-45): Gilberto Freyre published Northeast, Caio Prado Júnior published The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil , and Sérgio B. de Holanda published River Expeditions . Besides the proximity in time of their publication, they have another characteristic in common: all of them broadly analyze the relations between man and the environment. In contrast to the majority of people of their time, they extended their understanding beyond the grandiose speeches in which territorial grandeur and abundance of wealth became the founding element of a nationalist spirit. The occupation of territory was studied as historical, social, economic, and cultural action. Their works suggest proposals for the transformation of Brazilian society, with the making of a path to modernity different from the Iberian heritage as well as the idealized patterns in Vargas’s dictatorship.