Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Books
Though things are slowly changing, Brazil is spottily covered by books in
English. The riches of Brazilian literature lie largely untranslated, and too
many books on Brazilian politics tell you more about the political leanings of
their authors than Brazil. Still, a large number of foreign visitors, from Charles
Darwin to Michael Palin, have generated a rich “impressions of Brazil” genre.
THE BEST INTRODUCTIONS
★
Elizabeth Bishop
One Art
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
One of the best American poets of the twentieth century
spent much of her adult life in Brazil, living in the hills
behind Petrópolis from 1951 to 1969 but travelling widely.
This selection from her letters and diaries is an intimate,
sharp-eyed chronicle of Brazil in those years, and much
else. Her
Collected Poems
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is
equally essential - she is one of the greatest poets of place
in English, and her talent is unforgettably unleashed on
Rio, Minas Gerais and the Amazon.
★
written by an eminent historian from São Paulo. Fausto
shows very effectively how Brazil has changed dramatically
over time, despite the temptation to see it as a prisoner of
its own history.
★
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Tristes Tropiques
(Picador;
Penguin). The great French anthropologist describes four
years spent in 1930s Brazil - arguably the best book ever
written about the country by a foreigner.
Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti (eds)
The Brazil
Reader: History, Culture, Politics
(Latin America Bureau;
Duke UP). The breadth of subject matter in this thoughtful
anthology is impressive, covering Brazil from colonial times
to the present, using book and article extracts, original
documents and historical photographs. If it wasn't for the
volume's sheer weight, it would be the perfect travel
companion.
Michael Palin
Brazil
. It's easy to knock the ex-Python
comedian turned global traveller, but this TV series and
inevitable companion tome is a fun, light-hearted look at
the up-and-coming superpower, from the Amazon jungles
to the Blumenau Oktoberfest.
★
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
The Accidental
President of Brazil: A Memoir
(PublicAffairs). A well-written,
funny, fair-minded and often moving book by Brazil's most
urbane and cosmopolitan president. There's material about
his fascinating life before he became president, and the
usual vignettes of the famous - including a memorable
account of being upstaged at Buckingham Palace by the
Brazilian football team. Fascinating introduction to the
country by somebody who did more than anyone to
modernize Brazil.
Charles Darwin
The Beagle Diaries
(Penguin). Although
this collection of extracts includes Darwin's travels all over
South America, Brazil, where he spent more time on land
than anywhere else, figures heavily, especially Rio and
what were then the forests around it. Fresh and interesting
in his descriptions of the natural world, Darwin was also a
shrewd observer of Brazilian society; his contempt for
slavery in action is memorably expressed.
Boris Fausto
A Concise History of Brazil
(Cambridge UP).
The best single-volume introductory history of Brazil,
Larry Rohter
Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country
Transformed
. Brazil's recent economic boom and its effects
are expertly chronicled by this
New York Times
reporter,
tackling, among other things, the myth of Brazil's sexually
charged culture and life in the
favelas
.
Thomas E. Skidmore
Brazil: Five Centuries of Change
(Oxford UP). Very readable account of the emergence of
Brazilian national identity, from the first European contact
to the present day.
HISTORY
Gilberto Freyre
The Mansions and the Shanties
(California
UP). Brazil's most famous - and still most controversial
historian decades after his death - looks at the origins of
Brazilian urbanism and city life; deliberately provocative
conclusions and brilliantly written.
Katia M. de Queiros Mattoso
To be a Slave in Brazil,
1550-1888
(Rutgers UP). A history of slavery in Brazil,
unusually written from the perspective of the slave. Writing
for the general reader, the author divides her excellent
study into three themes: the process of enslavement, life in
slavery and escape from it.
Joseph A. Page
The Brazilians
(Addison-Wesley). A
cultural history of Brazil in a clear if eclectic style, drawing
on sources ranging from economics and political
psychology to film and literature. The author is a law
professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Patrick Wilcken
Empire Adrift: The Portuguese Court in Rio
de Janeiro 1808-1821
(Bloomsbury)
.
In 1807 the
Portuguese royal family, accompanied by 10,000
aristocrats, servants, government o
cials and priests, fled
