Reflections on Brazil and Life as a Historian: An Interview with Richard Graham

Abstract

Richard Graham is one of a handful of historians who shaped the field of Latin American studies in the United States. Graham taught for many years at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor of History Emeritus. At Texas he directed more than 20 doctoral dissertations and served as associate editor and then editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review from 1971 to 1975. Graham is the author of five books, among them Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil (1968), Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (1990), and Feeding the City: From Street Market to Liberal Reform in Salvador, Brazil, 1780-1860 (2010). He has edited five books, including Machado de Assis: Reflections on a Brazilian Master Writer (1999), Independence in Latin America (1972 and 1994), and The Idea of Race in Latin America (1990); he has published more than 40 articles. He was awarded the Conference on Latin American History's Distinguished Service Award in January 2011 (see his CLAH Luncheon Address in this issue), one of many scholarly honors.