An account of modernization and technological innovation in nineteenth-century Brazil that provides a distinctly Brazilian perspective. Existing scholarship on the period describes the beginnings of Brazilian modernization as a European or North American import dependent on foreign capital, transfers of technology, and philosophical inspiration. Promoters of modernization were considered few in number, derivative in their thinking, or thwarted by an entrenched slaveholding elite hostile to industrialization. Teresa Cribelli presents a more nuanced picture. Nineteenth-century Brazilians selected among the transnational flow of ideas and technologies with care and attention to the specific conditions of their tropical nation. Studying underutilized sources, Cribelli illuminates a distinctly Brazilian vision of modernization that challenges the view that Brazil, a nation dependent on slave labor for much of the nineteenth century, was merely reactive in the face of the modernization models of the North Atlantic industrializing nations.

Press, Power, and Culture in Imperial Brazil introduces recent Brazilian scholarship to English-language readers, providing fresh perspectives on newspaper and periodical culture in the Brazilian empire from 1822 to 1889. Through a multifaceted exploration of the periodical press, contributors to this volume offer new insights into the workings of Brazilian power, culture, and public life. Collectively arguing that newspapers are contested projects rather than stable recordings of daily life, individual chapters demonstrate how the periodical press played a prominent role in creating and contesting hierarchies of race, gender, class, and culture. Contributors challenge traditional views of newspapers and magazines as mechanisms of state- and nation-building. Rather, the scholars in this volume view them as integral to current debates over the nature of Brazil. Including perspectives from Brazil's leading scholars of the periodical press, this volume will be the starting point for future scholarship on print culture for years to come.

Press, Power, and Culture in Imperial Brazil introduces recent Brazilian scholarship to English-language readers, providing fresh perspectives on newspaper and periodical culture in the Brazilian empire from 1822 to 1889. Through a multifaceted exploration of the periodical press, contributors to this volume offer new insights into the workings of Brazilian power, culture, and public life. Collectively arguing that newspapers are contested projects rather than stable recordings of daily life, individual chapters demonstrate how the periodical press played a prominent role in creating and contesting hierarchies of race, gender, class, and culture. Contributors challenge traditional views of newspapers and magazines as mechanisms of state- and nation-building. Rather, the scholars in this volume view them as integral to current debates over the nature of Brazil. Including perspectives from Brazil's leading scholars of the periodical press, this volume will be the starting point for future scholarship on print culture for years to come.

An account of modernization and technological innovation in nineteenth-century Brazil that provides a distinctly Brazilian perspective. Existing scholarship on the period describes the beginnings of Brazilian modernization as a European or North American import dependent on foreign capital, transfers of technology, and philosophical inspiration. Promoters of modernization were considered few in number, derivative in their thinking, or thwarted by an entrenched slaveholding elite hostile to industrialization. Teresa Cribelli presents a more nuanced picture. Nineteenth-century Brazilians selected among the transnational flow of ideas and technologies with care and attention to the specific conditions of their tropical nation. Studying underutilized sources, Cribelli illuminates a distinctly Brazilian vision of modernization that challenges the view that Brazil, a nation dependent on slave labor for much of the nineteenth century, was merely reactive in the face of the modernization models of the North Atlantic industrializing nations.