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Hispanic American Historical Review 84.1 (2004) 148-149



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Tropical Versailles: Empire, Monarchy, and the Portuguese Royal Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808-1821. By Kirsten Schultz. New World in the Atlantic World. New York: Routledge, 2001. Illustrations. Map. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. xi, 325 pp. Cloth, $85.00. Paper, $23.95.

In general texts and classroom surveys, the hurried departure of the Portuguese court from Lisbon in 1807 and the residence of the de jure ruler of the Portuguese empire in Rio de Janeiro for 13 years are often treated as anomalous footnotes to Napoleon's control of continental Europe and Portugal's pitiful dependence on the British navy. Comparative surveys of Latin American independence often invoke the transfer of the Portuguese court to help explain Brazil's relatively peaceful transition to nationhood and the persistence of monarchy there. Taken on its own terms, in the context of its time, this minor incident of the "Age of Revolution" turns out to be much more interesting than such passing considerations suggest. As Kirsten Schultz demonstrates in this wide-ranging study, this unique experience of a European monarchy ruling from one of its colonies provides an important case study of transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional government. In the course of the court's residence in Rio, "the politics of representative government and national citizenship displaced the politics of absolute monarchy and vassalage" (p. 4). But that halting transition also entailed contradictions that had a fateful effect on Brazil's subsequent history: how to square liberty and equality with monarchy and slavery; or more recently, how to square democracy with inequality.

This is not a narrative history, but more a collection of essays linking political philosophy and contending theories of government in these turbulent 13 years to the particular tensions between metropolis and colony and master and slave. The shadows of European political ideas generally, and French history specifically, loom large over the Portuguese king and his vassals in this "tropical Versailles." The incongruity of postrevolutionary Napoleonic France tormenting the remnants of Europe's first overseas empire, as it doggedly clings to past glories and absolutist principles, becomes an appropriate metaphor for the decline of Portugal and the troubled birth of independent Brazil.

The documentation produced by the absolutist Intendancy of Police is particularly valuable in this reconstruction. The Intendancy was established with the arrival of the court and was a main target of constitutionalist efforts to constrain royal authority in 1821, precipitating the return of João VI to Portugal and the fateful decision of his son (who became Brazil's Pedro I) to lead Brazil toward independence. The Intendancy was charged with a broad range of administrative tasks: policing petty crimes, assuring the ideological conformity of intellectuals, securing housing for the royal entourage, building roads and water works, and so on. Its activities and its historical fate thus provide a bridge between the abstract notions and concrete institutions of an imperial monarchy, on the one hand, and the everyday experiences of Rio's inhabitants, from noble to vile, on the other. [End Page 148]

This book takes the place and time it studies on its own terms, foregoing speculative generalizations about other areas or subsequent developments. But students of the several crises of the reign of Pedro I and the subsequent decade of regency, as well as readers seeking a comparative understanding of Latin American history, will find much here to facilitate an understanding of Brazil's unique trajectory. More broadly, this book will be richly rewarding for those interested in the relationship between ideas and practice and between politics and society, both generally and during the transition from the early modern to the modern age.



Thomas H. Holloway
University of California at Davis

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