The Historiography of Brazil 1808-1889

Abstract

N REVIEWING the historiography of nineteenth-century Brazil produced in the four decades following the First World War, three factors emerge.1 In the first place, the output was large, compared with that of earlier periods of historiography. Seconidly, not only historians but economists, anthropologists, and sociologists contributed to the writing of history. In the third place, historical publications were more analytical than narrative, reflecting the growing professionalization of the historian's craft. In Brazil the search for tradition as well as the hunger for knowledge of the past, both forms of nationalism, help to explain the volume and scope. The emergence of a larger reading public, the product of a growing middle class, was another factor. Yet it is no exaggeration to presume that the turbulent post-war decades, as the rate of Brazilian modernization accelerated, encouraged many to look to the past for insight into the manifold problems of their times. Some looked to the past for apparent order and stability; others, to find out why their predecessors had left so many unresolved problems. The interests, prejudices, and ideals of the post-war generation of Brazilianists were reflected in the historiographical output of those years. In the post-war years, three decades after the proclamation of the republic in 1889, disappointment and cynicism replaced the optimism