Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil

In her superb book on Brazilian race relations, Paulina Alberto examines black intellectual culture in Brazil throughout the twentieth century, demonstrating the multiple meanings of black identity and politics in different regions and periods. Drawing from a detailed investigation of black periodicals, among other sources, she provides us with the best picture to date of black intellectual projects and social movements in Brazil, focusing mainly on Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. She connects the stories of key black intellectuals and their political and cultural activism to the broader Brazilian history of race and racisms, showing how individuals and groups negotiated their own struggles for racial equality in relation to dominant views of blackness and racial democracy. This allows us to see how black intellectuals in Rio, São Paulo, and to a lesser extent Bahia adopted different strategies for gaining rights within the...