Robin Kirk

Orin Starn

Robert M. Levine

John J. Crocitti

"Indispensable introduction to Brazil for students and general readers includes short scholarly articles, interviews, documents, photographs, and many autobiographical pieces. Begins with precontact indigenous peoples, but about half deals with Brazil since 1945. Topics include indigenous peoples, slavery, Vargas and labor, political protest, women, race relations, marginal groups, and popular culture. Overarching themes are mobility and repression"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

History, Culture, Politics

The Brazil Reader

José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy

Carolina Maria de Jesus

"Important volume attempts to lay to rest doubts about authorship of Carolina's best-selling Quarto de despejo, translated as Child of the dark. Diary entries cover years 1958-66. Translations aim to reproduce tone and register of the original, without embellishment or correction, and are followed by a fascinating discussion of Carolina's significance"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

The Unedited Diaries of Carolina Maria de Jesus

Kris E. Lane

"Kris Lane weaves a tale of pirate activities in the Americas and of Spanish responses to those activities that reveals aspects of pirate life and culture not usually addressed in the standard histories of Latin America. He demythologizes the pirates of popular culture and places them in their broader historical context in which their activities are seen as more pecuniary than nationalistic. Lane presents a concise narrative of the seaborne attackers of Spain's colonial empire, and, to a much lesser extent, Portugal's. The book's claim to originality and to revisionism is that it presents a concise overview of piracy in American waters during the early modern period--including considerable discussion of the often overlooked piracy in the Pacific"--From a review on H-Net.

Piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750

Pillaging the Empire

This book examines the life, times, and legacy of Getúlio Vargas, Brazil's dictator and president during most of the period from 1930 to 1954. Levine's chief concern is how Vargas' legacy influenced Brazil, and to what extent his social legislation affected people's lives. Vargas ignored individual rights, working for state-regulated citizenship without disharmony, without the right to dissent. His revolution was partial; one in which new constituencies and rules were grafted onto traditional political practices. Vargas devoted as much effort to manipulating workers as he did to benefiting them. By the end of his long tenure in power, some things had hardly changed at all: the readiness of the armed forces to intervene; the elite's tenacious hold on privilege; and the historical predominance of the Center-South. Brazil's distribution of income remained among the least equable in the world, but Vargas did not perceive this as a problem that needed to be solved. That Vargas promised much and delivered little did not diminish the adulation that Brazilians held for him. Ordinary people would shrug and say 'O presidente sempre lembrou da gente' ('The President always thought about us').

Vargas and His Era

Father of the Poor?

Kris Lane

Kris E Lane

Between 1500 and 1750, European expansion and global interaction produced vast wealth. As goods traveled by ship along new global trade routes, piracy also flourished on the world’s seas. Pillaging the Empire tells the fascinating story of maritime predation in this period, including the perspectives of both pirates and their victims. Brushing aside the romantic legends of piracy, Kris Lane pays careful attention to the varied circumstances and motives that led to the rise of this bloodthirsty pursuit of riches, and places the history of piracy in the context of early modern empire building. This second edition of Pillaging the Empire has been revised and expanded to incorporate the latest scholarship on piracy, maritime law, and early modern state formation. With a new chapter on piracy in East and Southeast Asia, Lane considers piracy as a global phenomenon. Filled with colorful details and stories of individual pirates from Francis Drake to the women pirates Ann Bonny and Mary Read, this engaging narrative will be of interest to all those studying the history of Latin America, the Atlantic world, and the global empires of the early modern era.

Global Piracy on the High Seas, 1500-1750

Carolina Maria De Jesus

Beth Joan Vinkler

Emanuelle Oliveira

Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-1977), nicknamed Bitita, was a destitute black Brazilian woman born in the rural interior who migrated to the industrial city of Sao Paulo. This is her autobiography, which includes details about her experiences of race relations and sexual intimidation.

The Autobiography of Carolina Maria de Jesus

Bitita's Diary: The Autobiography of Carolina Maria de Jesus

"Important companion to items #bi 00005749#, #bi 98007394#, and #bi 00005750#. Two historians retrace Carolina's life, especially in the years following the short-lived success of Quarto de despejo (Child of the dark), and reflect on what her life story reveals about race in Brazil. Includes extensive interviews with Carolina's children"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

The Life and Death of Carolina Maria de Jesus

"This unique, well-documented social history invites the reader to explore Cuban Jewry as a fascinating chronicle and to 'capture the flavor of their lives.' This is made possible by Levine's ability to write a text composed of carefully collated data, excellent illustrations, and oral testimonies. Levine's book contributes to an understanding of Cuban Jewry's unique setting -- starting from colonial times, through its second American diaspora following the 1959 communist revolution. ... Levine traces several stages of Jewish immigration to Cuba, starting with American businessmen rapidly integrated ... in some cases, into the Cuban upper class; Sephardic emigrants from Turkey, who were more socially accepted by Creole and other ethnic groups; ... and thousands of East European Jews arriving after 1924, who perceived the island as a kind of 'immigration hotel' on their way to America. ... Levine devotes two fascinating chapters to Jewish refugees escaping to Cuba before and during World War II. The tragic journey of 973 refugees carried by the St. Louis, whose landing permit had been retroactively denied by the Cuban government, is told by Levine through both dramatic oral testimonies and archival documentation." --Florida Historical Quarterly

The Jewish Experience in Cuba

Tropical Diaspora

Genevieve Naylor

In the early 1940s, as the conflict between the Axis and the Allies spread worldwide, the U.S. State Department turned its attention to Axis influence in Latin America. To cultivate the region's support for the Allies while portraying Brazil and its neighbors as dependable wartime partners, the State Department created the Office of Inter-American Affairs, with Nelson Rockefeller in charge. Genevieve Naylor, a photojournalist previously employed by the Associated Press and the WPA, was sent to Brazil in 1940 by Rockefeller's agency to provide photographs for propaganda. Often balking at her mundane assignments, an independent-minded Naylor produced something far different and far more rich - a stunning collection of over a thousand images that document a rarely seen period in Brazilian history. Accompanied by analysis from Robert M. Levine, this selection of Naylor's photographs offers a unique view of everyday life during one of modern Brazil's least-examined decades.

The Brazilian Photographs of Genevieve Naylor, 1940-1942

The massacre of Canudos In 1897 is a pivotal episode in Brazilian social history. Looking at the event through the eyes of the inhabitants, Levine challenges traditional interpretations and gives weight to the fact that most of the Canudenses were of mixed-raced descent and were thus perceived as opponents to progress and civilization. In 1897 Brazilian military forces destroyed the millenarian settlement of Canudos, murdering as many as 35,000 pious rural folk who had taken refuge in the remote northeast backlands of Brazil. Fictionalized in Mario Vargas Llosa's acclaimed novel, War at the End of the World, Canudos is a pivotal episode in Brazilian social history. When looked at through the eyes of the inhabitants of Canudos, however, this historical incident lends itself to a bold new interpretation which challenges the traditional polemics on the subject. While the Canudos movement has been consistently viewed either as a rebellion of crazed fanatics or as a model of proletarian resistance to oppression, Levine deftly demonstrates that it was, in fact, neither. Vale of Tears probes the reasons for the Brazilian ambivalence toward its social history, giving much weight to the fact that most of the Canudenses were of mixed-race descent. They were perceived as opponents to progress and civilization and, by inference, to Brazil's attempts to "whiten" itself. As a result there are major insights to be found here into Brazilians' self-image over the past century.

Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1897

Vale of Tears

Focusing on Brazil, this text covers issues such as: the legacy of colour; social realities; and diversions and assertive behaviour.

Brazilian Legacies

"A brilliant and sensitive portrayal not only of Canudos, but of the sertão more generally. By making the defenders of Canudos less spectacular and exceptional, [Levine] has rescued them from the museum of curiosities and restored them to the mainstream of backland life. It is about time we had such nuanced understanding about this tragic misunderstanding."—Steven C. Topik, Luso-Brazilian Review

Robert M. Levine

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