This book presents a historical synthesis of colonial relations between Brazil and Portugal, illuminating the projects that the statesmen of the period formulated for the rich Portuguese territory in America—at first as a colonial domain, then as a potential independent country.
Drawing on primary sources and historiographical dialogues with classic and current works, the book follows a chronological thread from Marquis of Pombal’s reforms to Brazilian independence. The work is framed by global geopolitics at the height of the liberal revolutions that led to the collapse of the Ancient Regime and the colonial system. Liberal revolutions, the Atlantic context, Napoleonic wars, and disputes for hegemony on the South American continent provide further background to the making of the Portuguese–American slaveholding class, the guarantor of the independence process. While the volume focuses on a remote period of history, its analysis of agendas for the nation offers the opportunity for dialogue with current concerns in Brazil.
Shaping Brazil is an effective resource for understanding a long and seminal period of Brazil’s history, which will be of value to scholars of Brazilian history and Latin American history and studies more widely.
By:
Jurandir Malerba
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Weight: 453g
ISBN: 9781041032496
ISBN 10: 1041032498
Series: Latin American History in Translation
Pages: 278
Publication Date: 30 June 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Foreword, Wim Klooster Introduction: a bridge to the past Part 1: Brazil within the Portuguese Empire 1. The age of reforms 2. A new pedagogy 3. The visible spectrum of lights 4. The colonial condition 5. Ideological alignment, science, and political economy 6. Whose Luso-Brazilian empire? 7. Reformers Part 2: The Portuguese Empire in Brazil 8. War time 9. A Court in the tropics 10. Logics of Court 11. A matter of classes 12. The character: João 13. José da Silva Lisboa, reformer Part 3: From Portuguese colony to the Empire of Brazil 14. Independence: passe-partout 15. Cortes, conspiracies, and clashes 16. Profile of a man between two eras 17. José Bonifácio, architect of chimeras Conclusion: A country for the few
Jurandir Malerba holds a PhD in history (USP, 1997) and is a full professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford and a visiting professor at Georgetown University, United States, and at Freie Universität, Berlin, where he inaugurated the Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Chair in Brazilian Studies.
