These two important studies center on the interaction of the Brazilian polity and economy in conditioning the country’s foreign relations with the great powers (excluding Japan, with whom Brazil had little trade in the period) during the years 1930-1945, the first phase of the so-called “Vargas cycle.” Both volumes were originally published in this country in 1975, but have now appeared in Brazilian editions.
The reader should know that O Brasil e as Grandes Potências is based upon the author’s doctoral dissertation and is essentially monographic in treatment, while O Brasil e a Crise Internacional is a collection of essays which originally appeared in American historical journals. One of the essays, “Roosevelt e a Guerra Européia (1940): Ilusão ou ‘Realpolitik’?,” seems oddly out of place in a volume that is devoted primarily to Brazil’s international relations of the period.
These studies represent strong contributions to the contemporary history of Brazil, a field which has until recently been relatively impoverished from the point of view of scholarly treatment by Brazilian or other writers. Fortunately, things have begun to change for the better with more professionally organized public and private archives becoming more accessible to scholars. (One should note in passing, however, that Brazilian scholars have complained that foreigners, especially Americans, enjoy easier access to such archives than their own nationals.)
Hilton’s interpretations of the turbulent period stretching from the Vargas revolution through World War II are frankly revisionist. For example, he takes John Wirth to task (O Brasil e a Crise Internacional, pp. 59-61) on whether the military strongly supported a national steel-making facility or whether they exerted much influence on formulation of Brazil’s overseas commercial policies. Hilton is often convincing, basing his arguments on solid archival research in Brazil, the United States, and Europe.
What emerges clearly from these studies is the image of Brazilian leaders “keeping their eyes on the main chance” in international economic relations in the interest of satisfying agricultural and other economic sectors’ demands while serving the goal of industrialization. Brazilian decision makers saw increased trade with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy in their national interest in the 1930s, much to the consternation of the United States and Britain. Perhaps the most original and fascinating parts of the two volumes deal with the influence of the Brazilian military on external commercial relations.
