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Brazilian History under a new light

Brazilian History under a new light

posted on February 13, 2014

I recently got my hands on a really interesting book that was a best-seller in Brazil a few years ago. Translating the title for you, it’s called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Brazilian History, by Leandro Narloch (Amazon). While it covers many aspects of Brazil’s history and places them in a new light, the author is a trained journalist, not a historian. Nonetheless, it’s an engaging read (though you’ll need a good level of Portuguese to read it).

The chapters of the book cover the Amerindians, slaves, famous writers, samba, Paraguayan war, a character known as Aleijadinho, Acre, Santos Dumont, the Portuguese Empire and Communists. While all of these subjects appeal to the lover of Brazilian culture, the chapter on samba is perhaps the most intriguing. It talks about how samba started out influenced by European and American styles of music and mixed with a Brazilian style called maxixe. In samba’s second coming, the new style (what we consider samba to be today) was born, and it was closer to a marcha, or Carnaval song. I’ve translated some excerpts from the samba chapter below.

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“The new samba musicians consciously went against the previous style. They praised the periphery and the morros of Rio though many were white and had a more refined origin than the sambistas of the first generation. The marketing of poverty worked. In the middle of the 1930s, the new style already carried the image of cultural expression of the morros and blacks. It had become folklore, a cultural value that should be preserved and protected from external influences.”

(Basically, people started to see) “poor people’s music as if it were the original samba, fighting against it being deformed by capitalism. In fact, the opposite happened. Samba was born from musicians who wanted to earn a living, please the audiences, and practice self-ethnography. “The interesting thing is that the ‘authentic’ was born of the ‘impure’, and not the other way around, but in a later moment the ‘authentic’ starts to pose as the first and original kind, or at least closer to the ‘roots’,” says anthropologist Hermano Vianna in the book, The Mystery of Samba.”

 

Other Articles about Brazilian Culture

Brazilian Music: The Grandfather of Samba

Beach Culture in Rio de Janeiro: “Olha o Globo!” – A Story of Brothers, Biscuits and Beaches

Roosters in Recife Sing Frevo

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About Adam Lee

Adam is a writer and a researcher who has studied Brazilian culture for over a decade and created several Brazil-themed blogs going back to 2008. Having taught himself Portuguese, he put it to practical use by spending three years doing Brazil on a budget (and living in favelas), from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon.

He now resides in Lisbon, Portugal, developing a startup and dreaming about having a beachside B&B in the Northeast of Brazil.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. deborah

    May 7, 2018 at 9:03 am

    que legal, adam! eu ‘tava tentando explicar pro meu amigo inglês a respeito desse livro que ‘tô lendo, e graças a Deus, encontrei esse artigo. obrigada!

    Reply
  2. Shea . S

    March 28, 2018 at 1:01 pm

    Upon reading the extract of the book, ¨The Politically Incorrect Guide to Brazilian History, by Leandro Narloch¨ it brings attention to a true story to provoke the minds of then readers. The book being a best-seller, being able to still look at various accounts in history while the writer is not a trained historian but a trained journlist. Covering events and topics such as, the Amerindians, slaves, famous writers, samba, Paraguayan war, a character known as Aleijadinho, Acre, Santos Dumont, the Portuguese Empire and Communists shows the work done by the writer to keep the book valid for scholarly use or for leisure by the average reader.
    This website allows for further reading as well by putting a purchase link for the book. My view of this artilce, ¨Brazilian History under a new light¨, has encouraged me seek out the book and decide further if the description and the praise behing the book suits it. The writer not being an historian can lead to flaws in the content in the book, however, if his work parallels other historical work it can have truth to it.

    Reply
  3. LEONARDO RODRIGUES

    March 7, 2015 at 2:05 pm

    This book is, actually, ridiculous. Narloch is not even historian…

    PS: I am brazilian.

    Reply

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