Envisioning Brazil: A Guide to Brazilian Studies in the United States

Chapter 14. Comparative Development of the Study of Brazil in the United States and France

CHAPTER 14 Comparative Development of the Study of Brazil in the United States and France EDWARD A. RIEDINGER It became commonplace at the end of the twentieth century to observe in international studies and relations that the United States had emerged as the world's only superpower. The United States had defeated its great military and ideological nemesis, the Soviet Union. Rarely observed and hardly considered, however, was that several decades earlier the United States had defeated another superpower, this one in cultural terms. That was France.I The cultural imperium of France emerged in Europe in the seventeenth century. Replacing the declining Renaissance ardor of Florence and Rome, it advanced around the globe into the twentieth century. Its allure of elite refinement and distinction swept over Germanic and Slavic states, North and West Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Indeed, the idea that there was an America that was "Latin" was French. The gaze that the world cast toward France was reciprocated by a French focus that studied all areas of the world. Within the Western Hemisphere, France gave special attention to Brazil. When U.S. culture superseded that of the French around the world, it did so not only in character but also scale. In many respects, indeed, the U.S. character was its scale. It was a culture of open access for the majority, not of restricted refinements for an elite. Although U.S. study of Brazil has been on a larger scale, it differs from the French in duration and character. Brazil shares with the a hemisphere with the United States, but with France it shares uma mentalidad, une mentalite. 375 EDWARD A. RIEDINGER I. FRANCE AND BRAZIL Throughout the five centuries of the history of Brazil, four major countries have been keenly interested and influential in its development. During the first three centuries Portugal dominated, interrupted by Spanish and Dutch interventions during the first part of the seventeenth century. In the last half of the twentieth century the United States has been most significant. During the first half of the twentieth century and throughout the nineteenth century, Britain and-even more so-France were foremost in interest and influence. It should be noted that, because of immigration, Italian culture and sociopolitical influence were important from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. In reviewing the accumulated study of and research on Brazil in the United States, it is of crucial importance to be able to place such a review within a comparative reference. Major countries and cultures with other interests, influence, and changing perspectives have preceded U.S. study. The latter has been both quite extensive and intensive. However, it is only the most recent and relatively the briefest of several phases in the history of foreign study of and interest in Brazil. Over the course of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, British and French research and interest dominated. British attention and concerns were primarily of a commercial and technical nature. During the nineteenth century, railroads, ports, shipping, wholesaling, some aspects of finance and insurance, electrical communications , and athletic activities followed British patterns. A medical doctor, Andrew Grant, wrote the earliest history in English of Brazil. Published in London in 1809, Dr. Grant's History ofBrazil, Comprising a Geographical Account of that Country, Together with a Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which have Occurred appeared just after British merchants were given preferential trading privileges in the country.2 It was prepared to caution readers about the region's insalubrious climate. The author, however , intrigued by the vast exotic realm, wrote about it with an engaging thoroughness (somewhat anticipating the first tourist guides of Thomas Cook). Shortly after the English edition was published, versions in French (Histoire du Bresi~ 18n) and German (Beschreibung von Brasilien, 1814) appeared . The French edition was actually completed in Russia. Czar Alexander I later financed a monumental expedition through the interior of Brazil during 1821-29. German-born Baron Georg Heinrich von Langsdorf, the Russian consul in Brazil, headed this expedition. It was France, however, as leader of the "Latin" cultural world, that had Comparative Development ... United States and France 377 greater interest and influence. Brazil was indeed one of the largest and, increasingly, one of the most promising of the Latin countries. The term "Latin America" originated from the pan-Latin ideas of the French...