The figure of Oswaldo Aranha has long cried out for a scholarly biography. Brazilian and foreign students of the Vargas era have always regarded him as its most attractive figure, and his voluminous papers have been available for some time, yet he has been virtually ignored. Moreover, he was one of the era’s most important men: the architect of the 1930 revolution, for example, and the man who strove hardest (as Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United States) to bring Brazil into World War II on the allied side. The reticence of scholars to “do” him is curious indeed.
O’Donnell’s book, unfortunately, is not the study we have awaited. It is a disjointed eulogy, by a journalist apparently making a case for Aranha’s canonization. Not content with an initial chapter of tributes quoted (without references) from Brazilian and foreign figures, O’Donnell continues to scatter them throughout the book, to the point where one skips over them. Since the work stops with the 1930 revolution, all too many of the tributes are out of context because they refer to Aranha’s later career. The book was probably written for gaúcho consumption (O’Donnell is from Rio Grande do Sul); it deals with Aranha’s life only until he became a national figure with the revolt that toppled the Old Republic (yet the author unaccountably includes a chapter on the parallel lives of Aranha and Virgilio de Melo Franco, stressing their careers after 1930).
In short, Oswaldo Aranha still needs a biography worthy of his stature. He was great enough not to require a whitewash.
