This brief but sweeping work by the eminent Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro forms the first part of the final volume of his series of four studies on the anthropology of civilization. The first two volumes, designed to deal comprehensively with the development of the peoples of the New World, are available in English as The Civilizational Process (1968), and The Americas and Civilization (1971).
In Os Brasileiros, Vol. I; Teoria do Brasil, originally published in 1972, Darcy Ribeiro attempts a new interpretation of his nation’s realities based on significant studies of Brazil, reiterating and using the theoretical structure elaborated in his earlier works. Although the author analyzes the limitations of the conceptual frameworks provided by both the academic social sciences and by dogmatic Marxism, his evolutionary schema largely follows that of Marx and stresses the importance of technological revolutions. Historical materialism and multilinear evolution underlie his approach. Ribeiro sees the “civilizational process” as operating in two opposing ways, leading to the evolutionary acceleration and progress of societies dominating the new technology or to the incorporation and loss of autonomy of peoples subjugated by the advancing societies. Underdevelopment, one of his major concerns, is viewed as the result of processes of historical incorporation explicable only by foreign domination and by the constricting role of internal dominant classes. He calls on Brazilians to liberate themselves from concepts leading to dependence and to struggle against all forms of compulsion and alienation, so that Brazil can affirm itself as a new entity.
Written with the perspective and passion of an exile wishing to influence the destiny of a distant homeland, this book is intended to stimulate action leading to social revolution, not just to foster theoretical discussion. But the former is far more difficult to achieve. An associate of deposed president João Goulart, Darcy Ribeiro has lived in the world of political action as well as in that of academia, and he responds to the exigencies of both, hoping to combine them. Although he tends to blame “academic knowledge” for failing to solve Brazil’s problems and castigates uncommitted intellectuals, Darcy Ribeiro must value such scholarship sufficiently to hope to disarm his academic critics by admitting that his formulations may be more daring than his empirical base permits. He draws on excellent studies on Brazil—his rich and well-chosen bibliography contains the works which should be read by anyone endeavoring to understand this country. But his ways of ordering the data involve him in considerable oversimplification. Not all the authors he lists would agree with his characterization of Portugal, one long echoed by many nationalistic elements in Brazil as retrograde and obscurantist, subjecting Brazil to the “strictest monopoly.”
Although the author hopes that this essay will provide the “ordinary Brazilian” with the necessary theoretical instruments to transform society, he has produced a work which will be purchased mostly by the university-educated, the prosperous minority. However, the book can help motivate students to strive to become what Darcy Ribeiro also calls for: intellectuals who can formulate the revolutionary strategies to overcome underdevelopment and dependency and create a new Brazil.
