AS INTERPRETAÇÕES CAIO PRADO JÚNIOR E CELSO FURTADO: A HISTORIOGRAFIA ECONÔMICA BRASILEIRA EM PERSPECTIVA

Abstract

The historical books of Caio Prado Junior and Celso Furtado are indispensable references for understanding the evolution of Brazilian economy. This work seeks to highlight the perspectives of these interpretations, pointing out their divergences and affinities not with regard to the colonial period, political independence and the abolition of servile labor To sum up it was possible to observe the convergence of these authors on the meaning of colonization. However, they differ on the maintenance of this sense in the Brazilian evolution. The consequences of the trade treaty between Portugal and England in 1810 are analyzed differently by the two authors, as well as the first decades after independence. Prado Jr. synthesizes this period under the perspective of contradiction that permeates his work: change with continuity. In turn, Furtado does not deny the limitation imposed on the autonomy of the Portuguese-Brazilian government, but delegates other reasons to the unsatisfactory level of development of the economy. On the slow process of abolishing slavery, the two authors acknowledge that the conditions of the time were not ripe for the immediate abolition of servile labor.