8 - Late colonial Brazil, 1750–1808

Summary

Volume 6 of Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão, História de Portugal, 12 vols. (Lisbon, 1977–90) is a conservative view of the period and includes extensive bibliographical notes. Other general histories of the period, such as Fortunato de Almeida, História de Portugal, IV (1580–1816) (Coimbra, 1926), and Damião Peres (ed.), História de Portugal, 8 vols. (Barcelos, 1928–38), are badly dated but can still be profitably consulted for some subjects. Although uneven in quality, there are many informative essays in Joel Serrão (ed.), Dicionário de história de Portugal, 4 vols. (Lisbon, 1962–71). For more specialized studies of Portugal under Pombal and his successors, see essay III: 3. For nearly a century and a half the classic history of colonial Brazil has been Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, História geral do Brasil, 9th ed., 5 vols. (São Paulo, 1975). While it remains worth consulting because of the sources utilized by the author and added to by subsequent editors, it is unsatisfactory as a synthesis for this period because of its defective organization. More readable is the fourth volume of Pedro Calmon, História do Brasil, 7 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1959), but the treatment of the post-1750 years in Sérgio Buarque de Holanda (ed.), História geral da civilização brasileira, I, A época colonial, 2 vols. (São Paulo, 1960), is woefully incomplete and disappointing. Far superior, though encyclopaedic, is Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva et al., 0 império luso-brasileiro, 1750–1822, vol. 8 of Joel Serrão and A. H. Oliveira Marques (eds.), Nova história da expansão portuguêsa (Lisbon, 1986). The major interpretive analysis remains Caio Prado Júnior, The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil, translated by Suzette Macedo (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), first published in Portuguese more than four decades ago.