Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity (review)

This is a fascinating, extensively researched account of a distinctive yet too often overlooked facet of twentieth-century Brazilian life: the centrality of the automobile (and truck) to culture and politics as well as economic development. Wolfe declares that he intends his study of autos to "complement" narratives of twentieth-century Brazil history that focus on "race, labor militancy, and a political system marked by either a severely limited franchise or outright dictatorship" (4). This welcome note of modesty notwithstanding, Autos and Progress provides a firmly grounded and innovative analysis of the meanings of modernity in the last century or so of Brazilian history.

From the start of his book, Wolfe supplies a wealth of details about the rise of automobility, which he defines as "the relationships among the society, culture, economy and automotive forms of transportation" (4). Deftly related anecdotes of early "raids" by auto enthusiasts into the roadless countryside, the growth of auto racing, the fate of Henry Ford's massive rubber plantation project (Fordlândia/Belterra), and the reception of the first cars in the crowded streets of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, all make for an entertaining read that will appeal to undergraduates and non-experts. At the same time, though, Wolfe uses these stories to illustrate the complexities of the development of a particular modernism tied inextricably to cars and trucks.

These vehicles were not, after all, simply means of transportation but potent symbols of national progress. Even at the most basely logistical level, as the author shows, automobility quickly established a demand for infrastructure and fueled industrialization in several regions of the country. Private enthusiasts formed automobile associations and pushed eagerly for a network of good roads. More important, though, were elite responses to great problems facing the nation in the first half of the twentieth century. As Wolfe argues, difficulties in quashing uprisings -most notably the 1932 regionalist revolt in São Paulo—helped convince military leaders of the need to embrace road-building projects (94-5). More broadly, government officials and other elites saw in automobility a technological and spatial fix that would allow them not only to control the populace of the interior but also to integrate the human and natural resources of the country's vast territory into the nation, bringing not only social and political unity but also economic growth. President Washington Luís summarized this position in his famous 1926 declaration, "To govern is to make roads" (34).

The bulk of Wolfe's work shows the powerful but complicated implications of that assertion. In particular, championing the automobile as a solution to many of the country's ills also tied it to nationalist development initiatives, especially during the rule of Getúlio Vargas (1930-45 and 1951-4) and thereaft er. It is in addressing the complex relations between automobility and industrialization that Wolfe offers his most striking arguments. His analysis of the relationships between foreign—mainly though not only U.S.—corporations and Brazilian nationalists is especially rich. He persuasively demonstrates the widespread adoption of Henry Ford's approach to industrial production and the expansion of consuming public. Together with the ideas of Ford's rival at General Motors, Alfred E. Sloan—emphasizing the marketable styling of goods—these North American philosophies became tremendously influential in Brazil. Not only politicians and business leaders but also writers like Monteiro Lobato, Wolfe shows, saw in these ideas a blueprint for deepening industrialization and spreading a new consumerism. By achieving those two aims, moreover, Brazil could become a global economic power and avoid class antagonisms; the country would become a nation of producers and consumers, united not only by love of the pátria but also by dreams of jobs and the goods that good salaries would bring within reach of the middle and perhaps even working classes. Cars, with the modern sheen of technological novelties and speed, were among the greatest of consumer aspirations by mid-century.

At the same time...