Since 1966, a number of seminars have been held in Recife under the leadership of Gilberto Freyre to learn about and discuss what the distinguished sociologist calls tropicologia, the “science” which studies life in the tropics. In this short volume we have a collection of eight papers and three short essays dealing with several aspects of the subject and presented by scholars from São Paulo in several of these meetings.
Unfortunately, the papers are rather vague and make no significant contribution to the study of the tropics. As a rule, the conferencistas spent too much of their time on generalities leaving little room to focus on the problems of the tropics. This is particularly true of Mr. Flávio de Carvalho’s paper on clothing and the tropics. In his fourteen and one-half page essay, Mr. Carvalho dedicates thirteen pages to a discussion of the history of fashion from 1600 B.C. to European styles of the turn of the twentieth century and only less than a full page to a description of an exotic outfit he conceived for use in the tropics.
Despite its appealing title this book is of only marginal interest to Latin-Americanists with the exception perhaps of those trying to keep abreast of the papers read at the Recife seminars.
