Summary of Brazilian History as Global History (Schulze & Fisher, 2019)
Introduction
This article discusses the slow progress of debates regarding the place of Latin America and
Brazil in the field of global history. The authors argue that Brazil's history is closely connected
to global interconnections and that Brazilian historiography is crucial to global history. Despite
common ground that global history hardly takes notice of Latin America due to its origins in
British imperial history and the dominance of Asian historians in the field, some authors have
proposed periodizations that consider Latin America's integration into global processes. The
authors embrace an integrative notion of global history that includes recent scholarship and is
an exercise in rescaling that traces connections and considers explanatory factors on a global
scale. They aim to provide concrete suggestions for overcoming the gap between the fields of
global and Latin American history by introducing contributions from Brazilian theory and
suggesting topics and perspectives that could be helpful for historians of Brazil to develop
questions informed by global history perspectives.
The Global in Brazilian Theory
This section explores potential Brazilian input to the conceptional canon of global history
Global encounters and cultural identities
The idea that national identities in Brazil were shaped by encounters and perceptions among
European, African, and Indigenous populations has been central in Brazilian social thought
since the mid-19th century. However, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazilian
elites adopted European ideas of scientific racism and subscribed to the "whitening" theory that
the population would gradually lose its African and Indigenous heritage through European
immigration. Brazilian modernism, embodied in Oswald de Andrade's Antropofagia project,
celebrated the fusion of European, African, and Indigenous elements in Brazilian culture. The
sociologist Gilberto Freyre brought a new understanding of hybridity in Brazil with his concept
of Lusotropicalism, which portrayed Portuguese colonialism as having a special proclivity
toward biological and cultural intermixture, making Brazil the paradigmatic case of a hybrid
society. This interpretation, while rife with cultural essentialisms and trivializing existing
racism, is still relevant to postcolonial and global historical debates.
Power Asymmetries
The evolution of global history, power asymmetries and the influence of colonialism and
postcolonial studies are shaping the field. Brazilian social thought has also contributed to the
discourse, with figures such as Manoel Bomfim and the Antropofagia movement critiquing
eurocentrism and power asymmetries. The Vargas era saw the dominance of economic and
social history, while dependency theories developed after World War II to address the impact
of global capitalism on Latin America. While dependency theories lost appeal, they remain
relevant for understanding global inequalities and for critiquing eurocentrism and
modernisation theory. The article highlights the importance of integrating dependency theory
into global historical analysis.
Introduction
This article discusses the slow progress of debates regarding the place of Latin America and
Brazil in the field of global history. The authors argue that Brazil's history is closely connected
to global interconnections and that Brazilian historiography is crucial to global history. Despite
common ground that global history hardly takes notice of Latin America due to its origins in
British imperial history and the dominance of Asian historians in the field, some authors have
proposed periodizations that consider Latin America's integration into global processes. The
authors embrace an integrative notion of global history that includes recent scholarship and is
an exercise in rescaling that traces connections and considers explanatory factors on a global
scale. They aim to provide concrete suggestions for overcoming the gap between the fields of
global and Latin American history by introducing contributions from Brazilian theory and
suggesting topics and perspectives that could be helpful for historians of Brazil to develop
questions informed by global history perspectives.
The Global in Brazilian Theory
This section explores potential Brazilian input to the conceptional canon of global history
Global encounters and cultural identities
The idea that national identities in Brazil were shaped by encounters and perceptions among
European, African, and Indigenous populations has been central in Brazilian social thought
since the mid-19th century. However, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazilian
elites adopted European ideas of scientific racism and subscribed to the "whitening" theory that
the population would gradually lose its African and Indigenous heritage through European
immigration. Brazilian modernism, embodied in Oswald de Andrade's Antropofagia project,
celebrated the fusion of European, African, and Indigenous elements in Brazilian culture. The
sociologist Gilberto Freyre brought a new understanding of hybridity in Brazil with his concept
of Lusotropicalism, which portrayed Portuguese colonialism as having a special proclivity
toward biological and cultural intermixture, making Brazil the paradigmatic case of a hybrid
society. This interpretation, while rife with cultural essentialisms and trivializing existing
racism, is still relevant to postcolonial and global historical debates.
Power Asymmetries
The evolution of global history, power asymmetries and the influence of colonialism and
postcolonial studies are shaping the field. Brazilian social thought has also contributed to the
discourse, with figures such as Manoel Bomfim and the Antropofagia movement critiquing
eurocentrism and power asymmetries. The Vargas era saw the dominance of economic and
social history, while dependency theories developed after World War II to address the impact
of global capitalism on Latin America. While dependency theories lost appeal, they remain
relevant for understanding global inequalities and for critiquing eurocentrism and
modernisation theory. The article highlights the importance of integrating dependency theory
into global historical analysis.
