The Seduction of Brazil: The Americanization of Brazil during World War II (LLILAS Translations from Latin America Series) - Softcover

Tota, Antonio Pedro

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0292723520 ISBN 13: 9780292723528

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2009

Synopsis

Following completion of the U.S. air base in Natal, Brazil, in 1942, U.S. airmen departing for North Africa during World War II communicated with Brazilian mechanics with a thumbs-up before starting their engines. This sign soon replaced the Brazilian tradition of touching the earlobe to indicate agreement, friendship, and all that was positive and good—yet another indication of the Americanization of Brazil under way during this period.

In this translation of O Imperialismo Sedutor, Antonio Pedro Tota considers both the Good Neighbor Policy and broader cultural influences to argue against simplistic theories of U.S. cultural imperialism and exploitation. He shows that Brazilians actively interpreted, negotiated, and reconfigured U.S. culture in a process of cultural recombination. The market, he argues, was far more important in determining the nature of this cultural exchange than state-directed propaganda efforts because Brazil already was primed to adopt and disseminate American culture within the framework of its own rapidly expanding market for mass culture. By examining the motives and strategies behind rising U.S. influence and its relationship to a simultaneous process of cultural and political centralization in Brazil, Tota shows that these processes were not contradictory, but rather mutually reinforcing.

The Seduction of Brazil brings greater sophistication to both Brazilian and American understanding of the forces at play during this period, and should appeal to historians as well as students of Latin America, culture, and communications.

About this title

About the Author:

ANTONIO PEDRO TOTA is Professor on the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo.

LORENA B. ELLIS is Professor of German at Queensborough College of CUNY.

DANIEL J. GREENBERG is Director of the Latin American Studies Program and Associate Professor of History at Pace University.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0292723520
• ISBN 13: 9780292723528
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216