Book Review- Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies (original) (raw)

Celso Thomas Castilho. 2016. Slave Emancipation and Transformations in Brazilian Political Citizenship. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Current trends in the studies of abolitionism in Brazil have explored the agency of enslaved populations in their fight for emancipation. They have also developed important insights into the shaping of citizenship during the nineteenth century through debates on race, social belonging, and nation building. Celso Thomas Castilho, Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, in his most recent work titled Slave Emancipation and Transformations in Brazilian Political Citizenship (2016), greatly contributes to this field through the analysis of the social dynamics of rights-claiming during the contentious abolitionist debates of late nineteenth-century Recife. By focusing his research on the Northeast of Brazil, Castilho enriches studies of slavery and abolition which, according to Petrônio Domingues and Flávio Gomes, 1 lack greater investigation beyond the country's Southeastern region. Castilho's focus on Recife, however, does not limit the research to the experiences of its population during the abolitionist period, as he includes regional, national, and international debates involving slavery and emancipation, placing Recife in a complex web of political, social, economic, and ideological decisions. He situates the reader into that heated historical moment between the 1860s and 1880s, providing an invigorating perspective on the interplay of power, influence, and the defining of citizenship between the slaveholders, abolitionists, state officials, the press, and ordinary people of the city. Through analysis of social actors from such varied backgrounds Castilho utilizes a historiographical approach that Jeffrey Needell defended as essential to understanding the " nature and timing of many of the phenomena " of late nineteenth century Brazil. 2 This approach, by focusing on the social aspects of slavery and abolition, does not, however, overlook the role of elites and politics during this period.