A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism is a translation (from the original Portuguese) of Roberto Schwarz’s renowned study of the work of Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis (1839–1908). A leading Brazilian theorist and author of the highly influential notion of “misplaced ideas,” Schwarz focuses his literary and cultural analysis on Machado’s The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, which was published in 1880. Writing in the Marxist tradition, Schwarz investigates in particular how social structure gets internalized as literary form, arguing that Machado’s style replicates and reveals the deeply embedded class divisions of nineteenth-century Brazil. Widely acknowledged as the most important novelist to have written in Latin America before 1940, Machado had a surprisingly modern style. Schwarz notes that the unprecedented wit, sarcasm, structural inventiveness, and mercurial changes of tone and subject matter found in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas marked a crucial moment in the history of Latin American literature. He argues that Machado’s vanguard narrative reflects the Brazilian owner class and its peculiar status in both national and international contexts, and shows why this novel’s success was no accident. The author was able to confront some of the most prestigious ideologies of the nineteenth century with some uncomfortable truths, not the least of which was that slavery remained the basis of the Brazilian economy. A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism will appeal to those with interests in Latin American literature, nineteenth century history, and Marxist literary theory.
This book is about unequal development and labour in Brazil, with particular reference to the economic and social development of the Northeast region, which has suffered persistent disadvantage. It combines a historical approach, which shows how economic, social and political institutions have been restructured over time, with an analysis of changes in the pattern of production, employment, unemployment and inequality up to the present day. It draws on detailed case studies to examine the connections between local and national production systems and critical labour market outcomes such as informality in employment, precarious work and disparities between genders, races and regions. The case of the Brazilian Northeast illustrates processes, relationships and policy debates that are important not only in Brazil but also elsewhere. The book will be of interest to teachers, researchers and students in economics, sociology, labour and development; public officials and policy-makers; the international development community; and the general public interested in Latin American affairs. They will find in the book an original and systematic analysis of the factors underlying unequal development and how they respond to different policy regimes and suggestions about the issues that need to be addressed in the future.
How slave emancipation transformed capitalism in the United States and Brazil In the nineteenth century, the United States and Brazil were the largest slave societies in the Western world. The former enslaved approximately four million people, the latter nearly two million. Slavery was integral to the production of agricultural commodities for the global market, and governing elites feared the system’s demise would ruin their countries. Yet, when slavery ended in the United States and Brazil, in 1865 and 1888 respectively, what resulted was immediate and continuous economic progress. In American Mirror, Roberto Saba investigates how American and Brazilian reformers worked together to ensure that slave emancipation would advance the interests of capital. Saba explores the methods through which antislavery reformers fostered capitalist development in a transnational context. From the 1850s to the 1880s, this coalition of Americans and Brazilians—which included diplomats, engineers, entrepreneurs, journalists, merchants, missionaries, planters, politicians, scientists, and students, among others—consolidated wage labor as the dominant production system in their countries. These reformers were not romantic humanitarians, but cosmopolitan modernizers who worked together to promote labor-saving machinery, new transportation technology, scientific management, and technical education. They successfully used such innovations to improve production and increase trade. Challenging commonly held ideas about slavery and its demise in the Western Hemisphere, American Mirror illustrates the crucial role of slave emancipation in the making of capitalism.
This book offers the reader a critical and interdisciplinary introduction to Brazilian history. Combining a didactic approach with insightful historical analysis, it discusses the main political, cultural, and social developments taking place in the Latin American country from 1500 to 2010. The historical narrative leads the reader step by step and in chronological succession to a clear understanding of the country’s three main historical periods: the Colonial Period (1500-1822), the Empire (1822-1889), and the Republic (1889-present). Each phase is treated separately and subdivided according to the political developments and successive regional forces that controlled the nation’s territory throughout the centuries. At the end of each section, an individual chapter discusses the foremost cultural and artistic developments of the period, engaging perspectives on literature, music, and the visual arts, including cinema. Through its multifaceted approach, the book explores economic history, foreign policy, education and social history, as well as literary and artistic history to reveal the multiethnic and culturally diversified nature of Brazil in all its fullness.
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