In February 1967 Louisiana State University sponsored a colloquium on the “modernization of Brazil.” Eric Baklanoff has gathered the seven papers under the provocative title The Shaping of Modern Brazil. The contributors attempted somewhat unevenly to span the five hundred years from 1500 to 2000, and Manoel Cardozo had the difficult task of summarizing the 308-year colonial period in 15 pages. He did an admirable job, providing a succinct introduction to Brazilian history and one of the two best papers.
The other was Kempton Webb’s look into the future by analyzing the geography of modernization. He writes with authority derived from much field work and a sensitivity for the Brazilian milieu. Webb predicts that the success of Belo Horizonte, Brasília, and the new highway system will lead to other bold ventures in which the Brazilians will put “their imprint upon their landscape with even greater confidence” (p. 156).
Eric Baklanoff exudes less confidence in his “External Factors in the Economic Development of Brazil’s Heartland: The Center-South, 1850-1930.” Writing almost entirely from materials in English (the exception being the Anuário Estatístico do Brasil), he gives major credit for Brazilian development to foreigners and foreign capital. Perhaps his emphasis is correct, but it would seem that the Brazilian leaders were not entirely passive. At least they should be given credit for understanding their nation’s needs and seeking or allowing foreign help. If not, then the papers between Baklanoff’s and Webb’s fail to explain the obviously great change in Brazilian mentality.
John W. P. Dulles’ paper is a good summary of the contributions of Getúlio Vargas. Unhappily, he has an incorrect quotation in the first paragraph which he would have avoided by using Vargas’ own words in A nova política do Brasil, [Vol. X (Rio, 1944), p. 61] instead of Morris L. Cooke’s paraphrase in Brazil on the March [(N.Y., 1944), p. 56].
James L. Busey would have profited from reading Dulles’ work before writing his own. He mars an interesting paper emphasizing the role of the moderating power in Brazilian history with references to Vargas’ fifteen-year dictatorship, with far too many words and expressions in Portuguese, with citation of secondary sources where primary ones are easily available, and with mention of the nonexistent “President José de Morais Barros” (p. 64). Vargas was not dictator fifteen years. The Estado Nôvo (officially called Estado Nacional after 1942) extended only from 1937 to 1945. Before that Vargas had been in turn provisional president (1930-1934) by virtue of revolution and constitutional president by virtue of election (1934-1937). There is no reason to use atos institucionais (p. 62), when “institutional acts” serves just as well. The unnecessary use of Portuguese can create awkward tautologies such as when the president decrees decretoleis (p. 67).
While Busey compares events since 1964 with those of the imperial years, he fails to cite such works as Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964 (N.Y., 1967); Manuel de Oliveira Lima, O império brasileiro (São Paulo, n.d.); João Camillo de Oliveira Tôrres, A democracia coroada, teoria política do império do Brasil (Petrópolis, 1964); Nelson Werneck Sodré, História militar do Brasil (Rio, 1965); or Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, História gérai da civilização Brasileira, Vols. 3, 4, 5 (São Paulo, 1962, 1964, 1967). The mysterious president on page 64 is actually Prudente de Morais. He could also be referred to as Prudente [see for example Pedro Calmon, História do Brasil, Vol. 6 (Rio, 1959), pp. 1920-1925] but not Morais Barros. Admittedly the Brazilians are not consistent in name usage, but such references indicate a lack of familiarity with the subject. In Busey’s defense, he was following Clarence Haring’s Empire in Brazil [(Cambridge, 1966), p. 170], which was incorrect.
The other two papers by Donald Huddle on the economics of “Postwar Brazilian Industrialization” and John V. D. Saunders on the relationship of education and modernization, though copiously illustrated with charts and dealing with important subject matter, are unexciting reading.
Conferences such as this are useful, but not all papers written for oral presentation and discussion are suitable for publication. Because most of the ones in this volume could not stand as single articles, their publication collectively does not seem justifiable.
