A conquista do Oeste: A fronteira na obra de Sergio Buarque de Holanda (review)

A conquista do oeste: A fronteira na obra de Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. By ROBERT WEGNER. Humanitas, 54. Belo Horizonte: Editora Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, 2000. Notes. Bibliography. 275 pp. Paper.

Sérgio Buarque de Holanda was one of the most diverse and influential Brazilian intellectuals of the twentieth century. In a career that spanned more than 60 years and included work as a journalist, literary critic, and historian, he had a profound influence on Brazilians' understanding of themselves and their country. Since Holanda's death in 1982, the meaning and implications of his work have come under increasing scrutiny. In this book, Robert Wegner makes an important contribution to our understanding of a particular aspect of Holanda's early work: his historical treatment of the Brazilian West.

Written in the tradition of intellectual history, Wegner's book primarily examines the monographs and articles that Holanda composed between 1936 and 1957 (though he does not completely limit himself to these dates). A sociologist by training, Wegner is neither interested in the historical merits of Holanda's arguments nor in the Brazilian context in which they were written. Rather, he sets out to examine how Holanda's early ideas were influenced by European and North American scholars. Although Wegner's thesis hinges on Holanda's treatment of the Brazilian West, his study does not aim to provide a general history of the region.

The book's premise centers upon competing notions of tradition and modernity in Holanda's early work—from Raízes do Brasil (1936) to Caminhos e fronteiras (1957). According to Wegner, the first of these books focuses on the tension between Brazil's traditionally rural past and its struggle for an urban future, whereas Holanda's subsequent work on the Brazilian West—Monções (1945) and Caminhos e fronteiras—bridges the apparent discontinuity between tradition and modernity. According to Wegner, the contrast in Holanda's treatment of these themes stems from the external historiographies of this period. Raízes do Brasil, he maintains, reflects Max Weber's study of Protestantism and capitalism, whereas Holanda's two subsequent books on the Brazilian West were deeply influenced by Frederick Jackson Turner's conception of North American frontiers. By interpreting Holanda's treatment of the Brazilian West in the context of frontier equality and democracy, Wegner reasons that Holanda envisioned the transformation of Iberian traditions in a way that would make them compatible with modernity while still maintaining their inherent Iberian character. Wegner concludes that Brazil's Iberian past should not be understood as a completely fixed heritage, but as one that is constantly in motion.

The book's nearly exclusive focus on European and North American influences—as opposed to the local context in which Holanda wrote—can leave the reader wishing for a more complete story. In spite of this shortcoming, Wegner's study provides an important contribution to our understanding of the international context of Holanda's early work.