Holanda, Sérgio Buarque de. Roots of Brazil. Trans. G. Harvey Summ. Ed. Daniel E. Colón. Foreword by Pedro Meira Monteiro. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012.

Abstract

Raízes do Brasil has been enormously influential in conditioning how Brazilians—and Brazilianists—understand the country. As Pedro Meira Monteiro observes in his Foreword, Raízes “is one of those works that shapes its readers’ imagination … serving as a mirror in which, while seeking their own image, Brazilian readers have also found their own attitudes and inclinations” (ix). Indeed, it is difficult to imagine discussions about Brazil and brasilidade without Buarque’s “cordial man,” his analysis of the country’s competing “work” and “adventure” ethics, or his melancholic observation that “we [Brazilians] remain exiles in our own land” (1).