This essay by the eminent Brazilian sociologist, Gilberto Freyre, is excellent. For faithful readers of Senhor Freyre, however, the ideas are not exactly new. The Masters and the Slaves, New World in the Tropics, and others also contained some discussion of the adaptability of the Portuguese to the tropics, which is the principal thesis of this essay. The author states that the Portuguese, more than other Europeans, sought in tropical cultures “values and techniques worthy of European esteem and of Christian appreciation.” Although the Portuguese brought their own civilization to the tropics, they were prepared to modify it to meet local conditions and to add the best of local, tropical civilization to their own. The name Senhor Freyre applies to the study of the fusion of tropical and Portuguese civilizations is Lusotropicology.
The Portuguese Ministério do Ultramar published this essay in both Portuguese and English in 1958. This new edition is the reissue of the 1958 English translation. Senhor Freyre merits a far better translation. The misspellings, scrambled syntax, and unattractive printing detract from the flow and comprehension of the essay. Happily the valuable contributions of Gilberto Freyre are apparent even through the fog of a bad translation and a poor printing.
