This is a collection of fifteen essays written over a period of approximately thirty years. Thirty-seven pages of the text are taken up by two prefaces and an introduction in which Freyre discusses, among many diverse topics, the possibility of interpreting his well-known lusotropicologia as a “policy science.” Here as well as throughout most of the book Freyre apparently proposes to salvage spontaneously-grown traditions and cultural development of the past, related to o mundo que o português criou, by some kind of deliberate concerted effort.
Some essays are merely lectures on introductory topics which Freyre held at the defunct Universidade do Distrito Federal. Others are comments on anthropological publications, mostly in the U.S., which have some bearing on Brazil. A propósito dos paulistas constitutes another attempt to solve the riddle of why São Paulo developed, since the sixteenth century, into one of the major foci of political expansion and economic development.
I do not know whether or not Freyre’s views on political organization have actually influenced public opinion in Latin America, but what he said in 1939 and now repeats in the chapter Continente e ilha has certainly won wide currency since: “I believe that Panamericanism must not depend upon political uniformity or [uniformity] of governments in the various American nations, and that any implication of such dependence involves restrictions to national autonomy serious enough to signify the sacrifice of a healthy individualism of such nations to a conventional political uniformity extending to the whole continent” (p. 153).
The most interesting and extensive essay of the collection is Acontece que são baianos in which Freyre discusses the role of the Negro repatriates who, after accumulating some savings, returned (mostly) from Baia to West Africa. The author takes great delight in the fact that many of these repatriates not only retained Brazilian cultural traits, but even imparted some of these to several areas of West Africa. This would be another ramification of lusotropicalismo. It remains to be seen how the emerging nations of West Africa, including the awakening Portuguese territories, take the notion of lusotropicologia as a policy science.
