Review of Claudia Calirman, Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles (Duke UP, 2012). (original) (raw)

Building an empire in the Age of Revolutions: Independence and immigration in the Brazilian borderlands – Miqueias Henrique Mugge

Topoi. Revista de História, 2022

Throughout Brazil's Independence process, its central elites and the Crown planned what was to become of their new nation. Arguments over political systems and the continuation of slavery were at the heart of the debate, which drew in rich, poor, and the enslaved alike. As the empires of the Old World were rent at the seams by wars and conflicts, Brazil was rethinking its role in the world. In this article, inspired by the dialogue between microhistory and global history, and by the trans-imperial trajectory of the Bavarian doctor Georg von Schaeffer, I examine the political ideas that informed the consolidation of the Brazilian Empire as a de facto empire. I also situate the ideas and proposals put forth by Schaeffer, a representative of the Brazilian government in Europe, within the crisis of legitimacy sparked by the Napoleonic invasions, the subsequent independence of Portuguese America, and the array of political projects that were able to emerge as a result. Through an analysis of the diplomatic documentation produced by the Brazilian Empire's main posts in Europe, I reveal a complex web from which the Brazilian government drew information, and the channels that carried news of alliances, clashes, and political repertoires that would go into the making of a tropical empire.

Dispositivos estatales, ilegalismos y prácticas sociales en la frontera Brasil-Paraguay (1890–2015)

ESTUDIOS FRONTERIZOS, 2018

The objective of the investigation is to analyze the development of illegal practices and their relations with the control and repression devices in the Brazil/ Paraguay border, specifically in the boundaries between Foz de Iguazú-Ciudad del Este and Guaíra-Salta del Guairá. Methodologically, we use interviews, bibliographic sources and criminal processes. Through the sociological historical approach, we problematize the relations between illegal practices and state apparatus in three specific moments, which represent periods where the Brazilian government and the inhabitants of the zones referred to presented different positions in relation to the borders. The investigation allowed to conclude that the organization of the labor market and the experiences of the residents of the border are related to the intensity of the presence of the State in the region studied.

The Rule of Force: Militarism and the Militarization of Politics in the Early Brazilian Republic (1889-1890)

Brasiliana: Journal for Brazilian Studies, 2021

This article addresses the immediate aftermath of the November 15, 1889, republican coup d’état in Brazil. Taking into account the diversity of the states’ political landscapes, its main theme is the profound transformation in the country’s political life precipitated by the abrupt passage from a parliamentary monarchy, marked by the ascendancy of civilian institutions, to a military dictatorship. It will demonstrate that, given the fact that republicans were a fragmented minority in most of the country, the military had preeminence in the implementation of the regime. However, considering that the coup was itself an act of insubordination, that control over institutions created frictions, and that the role of arbiters contaminated the barracks with the period’s extreme polarization, the liabilities of the militarization of politics were soon manifest. They were, most notably, the deep unrest and factionalism in the armed forces, the continuous institutional degradation, and the rise of authoritarianism.

A criação do Terceiro Corpo do Exército na província do Rio Grande do Sul: conflitos políticos resultantes da administração militar nos anos críticos da Guerra do Paraguai (1866-1867)

Revista Brasileira de História, 2016

Resumo Este artigo analisa a mobilização militar a partir da relação entre o poder central, a presidência provincial e as lideranças regionais no Rio Grande do Sul. Nosso foco é o período entre outubro de 1866 e abril de 1867, quando o comando militar brasileiro, sediado no Paraguai, decidiu organizar o Terceiro Corpo do Exército. Essa arregimentação foi organizada a partir de contingentes recrutados na província sul-rio-grandense. A criação de um novo corpo militar numa província que se ressentia dos esforços continuados pelo recrutamento exigiu negociações delicadas, num movimento que expôs as principais queixas sobre a execução do recrutamento e a intervenção do governo imperial nas questões locais.

Antirevolutionary diplomacy in oligarchic Brazil, 1919–30

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2004

In the 1920s oligarchic rule in Brazil was perceived to be constantly under threat from ' revolution '. Domestic developments and the impact of the First World War had brought about major changes in the political arena. In this context, the resources of the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Itamaraty) were systematically used by the Brazilian government as a means to monitor and counteract presumed overseas connections of a ' revolutionary ' nature. Actions against tenentismo in the Río de la Plata region and diplomatic efforts to oppose the 1930 Revolution, among other issues, are examined in this article in order to provide further understanding of the role played by Brazilian diplomacy in the final years of the Old Republic.

Anglo-American rivalry in Brazil: the case of the 1920s

2000

In the interwar period of the twentieth century, a long-term transition of power occurred in world politics from Britain to the United States, with a lasting impact on Brazil's international relations. This paper focuses on the 1920s with a view to casting new light on aspects of British and US policies towards Brazil following World War I. It is suggested that, in a context of intense foreign economic competition, the challenger (the United States) was generally welcomed by Brazilian leaders in order to counterbalance particular features of Brazil's dependence on the status quo power (Britain). A select bibliography is provided for further reading. 6 British consuls, the United States figured as a minor competitor of England until the World War, when it supplanted Great Britain as the principal supplier of the South American republic. The failure of England to maintain its traditional position during the years following 1914 was merely the natural result of war conditions and, to the Britisher, a temporary eclipse which would be rectified at the proper moment. Consequently, the real struggle for supremacy came after 1918 '. 4 It seems that the notion of a complete, ineluctable British economic decline in Brazil for the whole period between the wars must not be taken for granted, as it sometimes still is. This is even more true as regards the 1920s, when most contemporaries did not realize that a global transition of power could be in progress. Rippy showed that British capital in Latin America reached its maximum near the end of 1928: Argentina ranked first, with £420 million, followed by Brazil (£285 million) and Mexico (£199 million). The Wall Street crash of 1929, the world economic depression and another major war, accompanied by 'growing prosperity and rising nationalism' in the region, all contributed to seriously undermine Britain's position and, twenty years later, the amount of British capital in Latin America had been reduced to 'relative insignificance'. 5 If we therefore look at the 1920s to understand the impact of Anglo-American rivalry on Brazil's international relations, perhaps some useful conclusions may be reached without the post-1929 disruptive effects of the 1930s.

Entre os senyores e o império: transformaçiôes fiscais no formaçao do estado brasileiro, 1808-1840

Illes i Imperis, 2012

This work aims to discuss the process of constitution of the Brazilian Empire's fiscal structures, seeking to situate it in the context of the crisis of the Ancient Régime in America and of its overcoming. It aims to contextualize the uilding of the Estate of Brazil and its particularities, the territorial unity, the adhesion to the monarchic régime, and the reiteration of slavery, as a process that involved tensions, cooptation and resistance to the constitution of a political center. Starting with the arrival of the Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro (1808), the work analyses the initiatives, tensions and conflicts surrounding the taxation system, weither in the field of the relations between the political center and the provinces, in the public sphere or the resistances imposed by the private order. By particularly analyzing the southern province of Brazil, directly involved in the conflicts of the Platina region, it aims to show the peculiar means that allowed, on the first half of the XIX century, the relations between extraction and coercion in Brazil. Os processos de Independência e de construção do Estado brasileiro guardam em si especificidades que os distinguem da América espanhola-a preservação da unidade territorial da América portuguesa, a adoção do regime monárquico e a continuidade dinástica. Essas peculiaridades estimularam uma produção historiográfica que, desde o século XIX, buscou, no confronto com a experiência da América Espanhola e, principalmente, na permanência da monarquia no processo de Independência, uma explicação para essas especificidades. A instalação da sede do Império luso-brasileiro no Rio de Janeiro em 1808 foi vista, assim, como catalisadora importante dessa possibilidade de realizar a autonomia política minimizando as rupturas, que marcou toda uma linhagem de historiadores brasileiros. 1 Em contraposição a essa interpretação, desenvolveu-se outra vertente historiográfica que enfoca as rupturas e tensões presentes nesses processos. Sem negar as «continui-Illes Imperis-13

"Brazil into Latin America: The Demise of Slavery and Monarchy as Transnational Events," Luso-Brazilian Review 49, 1 (2012): 96-126.

Este artigo investiga a identifi cação nacional da elite brasileira dentro do contexto intra-latinoamericano até hoje pouco explorado. Durante o último terço do século dezenove, fi guras-chave do estado tanto como das letras no Brasil começaram a se interessar seriamente - de fato mais do que se tem normalmente admitido - pelos seus vizinhos. O crescente reconhecimento dos avanços hispanoamericanos permitiu o aparecimento de novos juízos de valor positivos junto aos velhos juízos negativos, o qual teve como efeito por sua vez tanto uma identifi cação otimista como uma identifi cação pessimista. Estas tendências interligadas e a largo prazo atingiram o seu momento crítico com a abolição da escravatura em 1888 e a queda da monarquia em 1889, os dois pilares da singularidade brasileira no subcontinente. A partir destes eventos importantes interpretes do Brasil começaram a se perceber como formando parte de uma Latino-América bifacial, ligada tanto à ordem e progresso no modelo da Europa e dos Estados Unidos quanto ao caudillismo autóctono.

EVOLUTION OF BRAZILIAN GEOPOLITICAL THOUGHT: ELEMENTS FOR A CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS IN SOUTH AMERICA

This paper addresses the evolution of Brazilian geopolitical thought on the region, aiming to create a theoretical framework on contemporary South America. We argue that if Brazil wants to enhance its leadership in the South American regional integration process, the country would have to harmonize neighbor States interests found in two main geopolitical components: the Bolivian heartland and the Amazonian heart. In order to reach the definitions of such concepts, this article analyzes the formation and evolution of Brazilian geopolitical thought, highlighting the geographic and political variables which underlie the stability in the region and provide the integration possibilities of South American countries. This will be the first part of the article, a historical approach to contextualize South American developments in its current geopolitics and a review of the main theoretical contributions of Brazilian authors in the last century. Once the geopolitical trends are assumed, the next section presents some principal elements for a current regional integration analysis in South America and what Brazil can do in terms of geopolitics. We believe that contextualizing these elements will strengthen our argument that harmonization of interests in these two main geopolitical realms will increase Brazil´s regional leadership.