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  • Brazil Through the Eyes of William James: Letters, Diaries, and Drawings, 1865-1866
  • Dale T. Graden
Brazil Through the Eyes of William James: Letters, Diaries, and Drawings, 1865-1866. Edited by Maria Helena P.T. Machado; translated by John M. Monteiro. Bilingual Edition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies/ Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. 230. Illustrations. Notes. $29.95 cloth.

On April 1, 1865, William James set off on board the steamship Coloradofrom New York City with a destination of Brazil. Twenty-three years old and a second year student at Harvard Medical School, James was one of six student members of the Thayer Expedition led by the famed Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz. During his time in Brazil, James penned several letters to his parents and brother and sister, kept a personal journal, and sketched numerous drawings of what he saw. The extraordinary racial, biological, geographical and environmental diversity of mid-nineteenth century Brazil had a profound impact on the New York-born James. With keen insight and meticulous research, Maria Machado suggests that James's sensitivity and empathy with the diverse folk he encountered enabled him to "accept the world that surrounded him, together with its cultural codes, on its own terms" (p. 48).

As head of the Thayer scientific expedition, Agassiz demonstrated arrogance and closed mindedness. The two decades leading up to the trip have been characterized as a period of "rapid change arising from the intense challenge to old divisions and hierarchy of knowledge" (p. 29). Agassiz did not adapt to or accept such changes. Instead, he ascribed to creationism and scientific racism. While in the city of Manaus, at the mouth of the Amazon River, Agassiz established the Bureau d'Anthropologie. There an assistant under the orders of Agassiz took pictures of inhabitants of the region, mainly naked mestizo Amazonian women. In the words of Maria Machado, "the photographs that have survived [currently housed at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University] still witness the violent appropriation of bodies and souls in the name of science" (p. 23). Three of these stark photographs are included in the book.

From the start of the trip, William James asserted his intellectual independence from Agassiz. Claiming, "never did a man [Agassiz] utter a greater amount of humbug," James rejected creationism and supported Darwin's views of evolution as soon as he learned of them (p. 76). He sought to analyze the world around him in a rational manner using materialist and scientific protocol. James's personal reflections during the journey demonstrate an unceasing determination to interpret subjective experiences and place them into a philosophic structure. The scholar Daniel Bjork posits that James experienced psychological death and then rebirth while in Brazil. Specifically, James contracted smallpox during his three months in Rio de Janeiro, which caused depression and a temporary loss of clear vision. Rebirth occurred through river travel in the Amazon and close interactions with the lush tropics. In his letter to his parents of October 21, 1865, James wrote "my health at present is probably better than it ever was in my life. I never felt in better spirits, nor more satisfied than I do now with the way in which I am spending my time" (p. 79). [End Page 431]

This book also offers impressive descriptions of natural environments. One reads of African porters traversing the streets of Rio de Janeiro, how James awakened to the sounds of an Amazonian jaguar at night, and the constant "invasion of several billion mosquitoes and flies" (p. 89). It also provides helpful insights about historical milieu. For example, upon landing his canoe on a beach along the Tapajós River (the volume includes a helpful map), two men who had been standing nearby quickly fled into the forest. James astutely observed they ran out of fear, "thinking we were come [sic] to impress them into the army [to fight on behalf of Brazil in the war against Paraguay]" (p. 72). The ties between slavery and abolition in Brazil and the United States, and the complex themes of masculinity, frontier and colonialism are also all addressed.

Using the materials written by William James and her impressive...

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