Summary

Roots of Brazil, the debut book of historian and literary critic Sérgio Buarque de Holanda (1902–1982), is a classic work of Brazilian social critique. Conceptualized in Germany between 1929 and 1930 and published in Rio de Janeiro in 1936, during the Getúlio Vargas government (1930–1945), the book attempts to make sense of the dilemma of modernization in Brazil. Focusing on the crises stemming from urbanization and, in 1888, abolition, Buarque de Holanda analyzes how these factors put in check the personalism that had governed Brazilian sociability since colonial times. In exploring the Iberian roots of the mentality of the Portuguese colonizers, as well as concepts such as the “adventurer” and the “cordial man,” the book reveals the contentious formation of democratic public space in Brazil.

The limits of liberalism, the seduction of totalitarianism, the legacy of slavery, and new forms of labor are some of the themes explored in Roots of Brazil. Still central to the Brazilian imagination today, the book has lent itself to a diversity of conservative and radical readings, including those of the author himself, who revised it substantially and never felt fully satisfied with his initial foray into topics that would captivate him throughout his academic career.