Tropics and frontier in the writing of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda

Abstract

From the mid-1930s, with Raízes do Brasil , to the mid-1960s, with O extremo Oeste , Sérgio Buarque de Holanda undergoes a significant change in his understanding of Brazilian space. Initially, in a close dialogue with Gilberto Freyre, the author conceives the country drawing on the notion of the tropics, a fluid space where Portugal could be recreated through the bond with the ocean. In Monções and Caminhos e fronteiras , the historian develops a deliberately opposed vision, conceiving the country from the notion of frontier, a rough space where a foreigner’s adaptability reaches its limit. In this phase, Jaime Cortesão and his thesis of Brazil-island became an invariable target of criticism.