Decadence or Crisis in the Luso-Brazilian Empire: A New Model of Colonization in the Eighteenth Century

Decadence and crisis are terms that are used interchangeably in everyday speech, but they really encapsulate essential differences in historians’ theoretical positions toward their object of study. Does decadence exist in history, or is it merely a judgment of the past made a posteriori? Does the definition of a historical period as decadent presuppose the presence of contemporary consciousness about that condition?¹ Scholars have differed on this point; for example, Fernand Braudel did not attribute any value to the notion of decadence; and Pierre Chaunnu argued that decadence was an objective reality signaled by a significant decline in the demographic rate and an even more impressive retreat in the cultural sphere.² The core of the idea of decadence is defined in the consciousness of the past and in the emergence of a new phase. In some ways, the idea of decadence is antithetical to a belief in an...