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Week 9: The Advent of the Republic

Powerpoint for week 9 lecture

Seminar Questions

Why did Brazil become a republic in 1889?

What are the connections between 1888 (abolition of slavery) and 1889 (declaration of a Republic)?

What was positivism and what role did it play in the early Republic?

What was the contribution of the military?

How much popular support was there for the Republic?

What attracted Brazilians to positivism in the late nineteenth century?

What can the lives of Rondon and Juca Rosa tell us about broader historical processes during the late Empire and the early Republic?

Why was Canudos destroyed with such violence?

Seminar Reading

Please read at least two of:

•Skidmore, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Chapter 4

* Emilia Viotti Da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories, chapter 8

•Gabriela Reis Sampaio, “Juca Rosa,” [the relevant chapter is the second in this extract] in The Human Tradition in Modern Brazil, ed. Peter Beattie, pp 53-68

• Todd Diacon, Stringing Together a Nation, Introduction and Chapter 4: Positivism.

Robert M. Levine, Vale of Tears: Revisiting the Canudos Massacre in Northeastern Brazil, 1893-1897 (1992) “Introduction.”