Ninteenth-Century Brazilian Slavery and Abolition: Twentieth-Century Travel Accounts

"Follow the music and get to the beating heart of Brazil!" "From the programmed mayhem of Carnival to the pounding drums of cult priestesses, from the cowpoke ballads of the drought-stricken Northeast to Rio's sophisticated pop tunes, John Krich sings beyond the stereotypes to evoke a culture of transcendent pleasure. Using musical expression as the entree to a complex and contradictory society, the iconoclastic author of Music in Every Room and El Beisbol takes us on an unforgettable journey to the heart and soul of South America's most diverse country." "Krich's "one-man samba" moves through travelogue, political reportage, ethnography, in-depth interviews, and playful, sumptuous prose. Born of a lifelong passion for the music of Brazil that began with "The Girl from Ipanema," this eyewitness account describes the roots of styles influencing world music today. Along the way we are plunged into the frenetic folklore of Brazil's major Carnivals; taken on a guided tour of Afro-Brazilian religious sects; sent out along back roads to colonial outposts echoing with song - only to end up in the Amazon rain forest on a hilarious search for the origins of the lambada." "And we are introduced to the country's musical heroes, including the grand old man of bossa nova, Antonio Carlos Jobim; Bahia's folk poet Caetano Veloso; the irrepressible champion of black rights, Gilberto Gil; pop vocalist Milton Nascimento; Carmen Miranda's legendary songwriter, Sinval Silva; as well as a generation of unknown sambistas who play for love alone." "Welcome, then, to Brazil, where, as Krich observes, "there's always more and most, even of less." How can the nation with the greatest wealth of usable land, coastline, and coffee also have the most unequal distribution of wealth and the highest external debt? With millions of homeless children on the street and hundreds killed annually by death squads, how can Brazil remain a realm "organized for joy"? Why is this country dancing?" "That is the question Krich asks - and answers - in a passionate book that pulses with irresistible rhythms."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Austrian poet, playwright, novelist, biographer, and essayist, Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), committed suicide partly in despair over the rise of the Third Reich; but in the late 1930s, Zweig traveled to Brazil and wrote about its cities, history, economy, and culture.

"Beyond the completion of a 3,000-mile journey, mostly under amusing conditions, through a little-known part of the world, and the discovery of one new tributary to a tributary to a tributary of the Amazon, nothing of importance was achieved." Nothing indeed. In 1932, Peter Fleming, a literary editor, traded his pen for a pistol and took off as part of the celebrated search for missing English explorer Colonel P.H. Fawcett. With meager supplies, faulty maps, and packs of rival newspapermen on their trail, Fleming and his companions marched, canoed, and hacked through 3,000 miles of wilderness and alligator-ridden rivers in search of the fate of the lost explorer. One of the great adventure stories, Brazilian Adventure is as fresh a story today as it was when originally published in 1933.

On the occasion in question Father Zahm had just returned from a trip across the Andes and down the Amazon and came in to propose that after I left the presidency he and I should go up the Paraguay into the interior of South America.

Brazil is an eclectic nation that evokes images of vibrant carnivals, crowded shanty towns and football on the beach. Shaped by its many cultures, the Portugese, African, Native Indian and European communities have ensured the evolution of a colourful, diverse population. John Malathronas fell prey to Brazil's seductive allure in the early 1980s, a fascination that continues to this day. His odyssey through the adrenaline-fuelled, chaotic city bars, the extravagant carnival, the lush rainforest and the destitute shanty towns reveals the throbbing heartbeat of the country.

Combining travel, history, culture, and his own memories of twenty years of Brazilian life, the author of Midnight in Sicily delves into the past and present of a country that affects our imagination like few other places on earth From his own near murder in Rio at the hands of an intruder twenty years ago and continuing through the recent slaying of a former president's bagman who looted the country of more than a billion dollars, violent death poses a steady threat in Peter Robb's brilliant travelogue through modern-day Brazil. It's not death, however, that leaves a lasting impression but the exuberant life force that emanates from the country and its people. Seeking to understand how extreme danger and passion can coexist in a nation for centuries, Robb travels from the cobalt blue shores of southern Brazil to the arid mountains of the northeast recounting four centuries of Brazilian history from the days of slavery to the recent election of the country's first working-class president. Much more than a journey through history, Robb renders in vivid detail the intoxicating pleasures of the food, music, and climate of the country and references the work of Brazil's greatest writers to depict a culture unlike any other. With a stunning prose style and an endlessly inquisitive intellect, Robb builds layer upon layer of history, culture, and personal reminiscence into a deeply personal, impressionistic portrait of a nation. The reader emerges from A Death in Brazil not just with more knowledge about the country but with a sense of having experienced it and with a deep understanding of its turbulent soul.

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Off-campus access limited to current UF students & employees