Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Nova história militar brasileira

2006; Duke University Press; Volume: 86; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00182168-2005-039

1527-1900

Daniel Masterson,

History of Colonial Brazil

This is one of most important anthologies devoted to a single Latin American military establishment in recent years. Nova história militar brasileira contains 17 individual chapters arranged in chronological order and covering a very wide array of topics that were, and still are, critical to the development of Brazil’s modern military establishment. The volume includes works by many of the leading historians of Brazil’s armed forces and ranges in subject from army deserters (Shirley Maria Silva Nogueira) to women and homosexuality in the Brazilian armed forces (Maria Celina D’Araujo). More traditional topics, such as the armed forces during the Paraguayan War and the Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) experience in Italy during World War II, receive attention as well.Brazil’s navy, often neglected in military studies, is analyzed in its formative years (1808 – 1910) in two instructive chapters by Paloma Siqueira Fonseca and Alvaro Pereira do Nascimento. These early years saw many billets manned by English seamen looking for work in South America at a time when Brazil’s navy transformed itself during the change from colonial rule to independent monarchy. These were troubled years, and the navy’s rank and file lacked discipline. The officer corps also struggled to identify its mission during the last days of the empire and the formative years of the Old Republic. Peter Beattie’s work on discipline, sexuality, race, honor, and national identity is highlighted here. His article pays particular attention to the questions of sexual identity and honor in the late-nineteenth-century Brazilian army. This is done, in part, by examining purported cases of “sexual deviance” within the army and the institution’s reaction to these perceived severe breaches of discipline.The roots of Brazil’s modern armed forces can be found the Paraguayan War and its aftermath. Francisco Fernando Monteoliva Doratioto’s essay focuses more on the occupation of Paraguay by Brazilian troops than the actual military operations. During the seven-year occupation of Paraguay, the Brazilian occupation force helped initiate the rebuilding of the defeated nation, and its commander, General José da Silva Auto Guimaráes, participated actively in the political decision making following the war. Facing a restive population under very difficult circumstances, important elements of the Brazilian army gained confidence and a sense of mission from the Paraguayan occupation that would contribute to a more comprehensive view of professionalism during the last years of the Empire.Of enormous significance in shaping the ethos of the Brazilian army in the 1960s and beyond was the experience of the Brazilian Expeditionary Forces (BEF) in Italy in 1944 – 45. Brazil was the only Latin American nation to assemble and train a division-size force that actually saw combat in the European theater. Fighting with U.S. Army General Mark Clark’s 5th Army in some of the most difficult battles of the war in Europe, the BEF (after some initial setbacks) distinguished itself in many aspects of the fighting. Cesar Campiani Maximiano reflects on how the Brazilian “grunts” in the trenches viewed their war experience through the lens of snatches of poetry written by foot soldiers. But it was the junior and midgrade officers of the BEF who would rise with overweening confidence to command positions in the 1960s, launching Brazil on more than two decades of military dictatorship.Shawn Smallman effectively analyzes the “professionalization of violence” that shaped the military dictatorship between 1945 and 1964. Drawing on some of the most substantive literature of the past 25 years, he argues that the Brazilian army’s use of “extralegal violence” was in some measure shaped by the repressive policies of the army and police during Getúlio Vargas’s Estado Novo and refined, to some degree, by the close relations between the U.S. military and the Brazilian armed forces during the last three decades of the cold war.Each of the essays is accompanied by an excellent bibliography. The authors, for the most part, made significant use of archival materials, both in Brazil and elsewhere. These components will significantly aid scholars in their study of the Brazilian armed forces. With all these positive attributes, it is surprising that the editors did not choose to devote significant attention to the Tenentes movement of the mid-1920s. Also, it would seem that some of Frank McCann’s valuable work on the Brazilian military should have been included. Finally, some discussion of the changing role of the Brazilian military in the post - cold-war era is necessary. This said, it is certain that Nova história militar brasilera will still be consulted by scholars of the Brazilian military for many years to come.