Chapters of Brazil's Colonial History 1500-1800

João Capistrano de Abreu

Dec 1998 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

In Chapters in Brazil's Colonial History, Capistrano de Abreu created an integrated history of Brazil in a landmark work of scholarship that is also a literary masterpiece. Abreu offers a startlingly modern analysis of the past, based on the role of the economy, settlement, and the occupation of the interior. In these pages, he combines sharp portraits of dramatic events--close fought battles against Dutch occupation in the 1650s, Indian resistance to often brutal internal expansion--with insightful social history. A master of Brazil's ethnographic landscape, he provides detailed sketches of daily life for Brazilians of all stripes. Superbly translated by Arthur A. Brakel and edited by Stuart Schwartz and Fernando Novais, this Brazilian classic has never before available in English. Chapters in Brazil's Colonial History opens Brazil's rich, fascinating past to the general reader, and offers scholars access to a great turning point in historical scholarship.

About the author

Arthur Brakel is the translator of Cyro do Anjo's Diary of a Civil Servant and João Reis's Slave Rebellion in Brazil. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Stuart B. Schwartz is George Burton Adams Professor of History at Yale University. Fernando Novais is a Brazilian scholar currently teaching at the University of Campinas, Brazil.