Disputed Pasts: Forgetting and Remembering the Dictatorship in Brazil

Szwako, Josà ,Buarque de Hollanda, Cristina

ISBN 10: 1477334076 / ISBN 13: 9781477334072

Published by University of Texas Press, 2026

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Disputed Pasts: Forgetting and Remembering the Dictatorship in Brazil
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1477334076
• ISBN 13: 9781477334072
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

How the memory of military dictatorship shapes Brazil's political divides and the far-right's rise.

Brazil’s military dictatorship ended in 1985, but its history still looms large over the country. Since the restoration of democracy, national politics have been shaped by heated contestation over the dictatorship’s legacy. Cristina Buarque de Hollanda and José Szwako examine how the state, the military, and civil society have variously mourned, celebrated, and suppressed memories of Brazil’s violent past―and to what ends.

As the dictatorship faltered under pressure from the opposition in the streets and in Congress, popular opinion favored democracy, which often meant forgetting. Today, the Brazilian left contends that the past has been silenced, paving the way for Jair Bolsonaro and the far right. Yet the past has been intensely contested: media outlets, social movements, and official commissions have long documented the dictatorship and spurred reparations. Disputed Pasts argues that the conservative ascendency is a reaction to these efforts of remembrance. The right seeks to rehabilitate the violent past by discrediting victims and elevating the dictatorship’s anti-communist ideology. Far from forgetting the past, Bolsonaro and Bolsonarismo actively remember and celebrate it.

About the Author

Cristina Buarque de Hollanda is an adjunct associate professor of political science at New York University Abu Dhabi and a collaborating associate professor of political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. She is the author of Teoria das elites and Modos da representação política: O experimento da Primeira República brasileira.

José Szwako is a professor of sociology at the Institute of Social and Political Studies of the State University of Rio de Janeiro. He is the coauthor of Dicionário dos negacionismos no Brasil and Movimentos sociais e institucionalização: Políticas sociais, raça e gênero no Brasil pós-transição.