Clara Carvalho & João de Pina Cabral (eds), A persistência da história: passado e contemporaneidade em África
2006; Brill; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1163/17683084-01301012
ISSN1768-3084
Autores Tópico(s)Philippine History and Culture
Resumode Pina Cabral have done the academic world the singular service of editing such a collection and the Lisbon institute of social sciences is to be congratulated on its publication.No country can flourish without a history to underpin its identity and selfrespect and so a team of scholars met at Brown University in 2002 -the year in which the guns fell silent in Angola -to see how best to piece together the fragments of evidence which survive from the colonial experience in Lusophone Africa 1 .The resulting book is divided into three parts, The Fragile Empire, The Precarious Cape Verdes, and The Moulding of Mozambique.Although Cape Verde and Mozambique hold prominent places in the collection let it not be assumed that this book is for regional specialists alone; much of what the authors have to say is richly illuminating of the historical experience throughout Africa.Wilson Trajano Filho, from Brasília, begins by surveying the self-deprecating attitude to the "fragile empire" which descended on Portugal after the 1822 independence of Brazil, a lethargy out of which the country was not shaken until Lord Salisbury told "poor Portugal" to keep off the lawns belonging to Cecil Rhodes.The chapter ranges through the literature from the statistical volumes of Lopes de Lima to the ironic essays of Eça de Queiroz with an occasional nod towards the modernity of the Commaroffs.The key theme of the chapter, and indeed of the whole book, is ambiguity, the multiple identities of those who lived -and live -in colonies and anciennes colonies, constantly adapting themselves to their circumstances and opportunities.Trajano quotes the romanticised self-image of the son of a Bissau chief who, in 1912, is also an officer in the colonial army
Referência(s)