A lecture organized by Canning House and the Brazil Institute at King’s College London.
The Brazilian Republican Manifesto of 1870 began famously with the words ‘Somos da América e queremos ser americanos’. The proclamation of the Republic in November 1889 and Brazil’s participation in the International Conference of American States in Washington (1889-90) are generally taken to mark the end of Brazil’s isolation in the Americas and the beginning of the ‘americanization’ of Brazil’s foreign relations. But what is meant by this? The lecture will examine Brazil’s relations with the United States and the Spanish American republics in the period from 1889 to the First World War through the ideas and actions of three leading Brazilian intellectuals who had much to say about Brazil’s role in the region and were also engaged in the formulation and implementation of Brazilian foreign policy: the Barão do Rio Branco (1845-1912), Joaquim Nabuco (1849-1910) and Manoel de Oliveira Lima (1867-1928).
Leslie Bethell, currently Visiting Professor at the Brazil Institute, Kings College London, is Emeritus Professor of Latin American History, University of London; Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford; Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C; and one of twenty elected foreign members of the Academia Brasileira de Letras. He is a former Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, and founding Director of the Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford. His publications include The abolition of the Brazilian slave trade (Cambridge, 1970; Port. trans. 1976; 2nd Port. trans., 2002), (editor, with Ian Roxborough) Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War (Cambridge, 1992; Port. trans. 1996), (editor, with José Murilo de Carvalho) Joaquim Nabuco e os abolicionistas britânicos (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2008; Eng. trans., 2009), Charles Landseer- Desenhos e Aquarelas de Portugal e do Brasil, 1825-1826 (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Moreira Salles, 2010); and Joaquim Nabuco na Europa e nos Estados Unidos: abolicionista, jornalista e estadista (Rio de Janeiro: Bem-Te-Vi Producoes Literarias, forthcoming, 2015). He is Editor of the Cambridge History of Latin America (12 volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1984-2008). He lives in Rio de Janeiro.
The lecture is open to the public; no registration is required. For further information, please contact iain.o.hannah@kcl.ac.uk.