The History of Brazil

Catalog description

This course will study the history of Brazil, the only Portuguese-speaking nation in Latin America, from the colonial to the present period. We will examine Brazil's transformation from Portuguese colony to the seat of a nineteenth century transcontinental empire ruled by the only European monarch to rule from the Americas, and discuss developments such as plantation slavery and industrialization that transformed Brazil into an international powerhouse. We will examine political, economic, cultural and racial movements and institutions that defined Brazilian history during the empire, the first republic, the Vargas era, and the military dictatorship. We will conclude with a look at Brazil's struggles with democracy from the 1980s to the present as well as the rise of contemporary populist leaders, Brazil's struggles surrounding policing, political corruption, affirmative action, and its hosting international sporting events in the twenty-first century. This course is designed to introduce students to the making of the modern Brazilian state focusing on the period from the rise of the Brazilian Empire in 1808 through the modern day. We will survey major historical trends in Brazilian society, from its roots as a Portuguese colony and its role at the center of slavery and the slave trade in the Americas to its distinctive patterns of independence and nationhood. Brazil's experience as an independent nation during the nineteenth century (it became the only long-term monarchy in the Americas) offers an interesting point of comparison to the history of republican nationhood elsewhere in North and South America. We will also examine the challenges of state and nation building during the nineteenth and early twentieth century as well as the challenges associated with late industrialization and state-sponsored development.