Marshal Deodoro and the Fall of Dom Pedro II

Charles Willis Simmons (1917-?)

Published by Duke University Press, Durham, 1966

About this Item

174 pages with bibliography and index. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 1/4") bound in original publisher's green cloth with red label to spine in gilt lettering in original jacket. First edition. This neat little monograph, a revised and enlarged doctoral dissertation from the University of Illinois, deals with one of the most tragic yet important eras of Brazilian history, that of the late Empire and early Republic. As the title of the book suggests, the author weaves the initial part of his story around the interesting, important, and yet tragic figure of Mânoel Deodoro da Fonseca. Born in 1827, Deodoro was the third child of a large military family from the province of Alagoas. In Brazil it was natural that this son should follow in the family tradition, one of few open to the ambitious of those days and later. Before the age of forty Deodoro had commanded a battalion along the border of Uruguay. Shortly thereafter he was fighting for his country in the jungles of Paraguay against dictator Francisco Solano Lopez, where he won not only military fame but a serious injury. Returning home at the end of the war, with his military prestige and personal ambitions greatly enlarged, Deodoro became engulfed in the political, social, and economic problems which rent his country during the next two decades and which terminated in a change of regimes and the establishment of his dictatorship. In this initial portion of his study, the author made his major contribution, at least so far as United States students are concerned, by finding a way through the confused material. The second part of the study deals with the major developments resulting in the overthrow of the Brazilian Empire in 1889, which one wise contemporary Latin American sorrowfully remarked was the downfall of the most democratic republic in Latin America. Many factors were responsible for this constitutional tragedy, but the major ones were the republican and abolitionist movements, the conflict between the Church and the imperial government, and the succession question. Perhaps because this era and its major questions are better known to the world outside Brazil, the author s treatment is far less detailed than in the first part. Condition: Jacket light edge chips, spine sunned else very good to fine in a better than very good jacket. Seller Inventory # BOOKS005218

Bibliographic Details

Title: Marshal Deodoro and the Fall of Dom Pedro II

Publisher: Duke University Press, Durham

Publication Date: 1966

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition