This book presents a historical synthesis of colonial relations between Brazil and Portugal, illuminating the projects that the statesmen of the period formulated for the rich Portuguese territory in America―at first as a colonial domain, then as a potential independent country.

Drawing on primary sources and historiographical dialogues with classic and current works, the book follows a chronological thread from Marquis of Pombal’s reforms to Brazilian independence. The work is framed by global geopolitics at the height of the liberal revolutions that led to the collapse of the Ancient Regime and the colonial system. Liberal revolutions, the Atlantic context, Napoleonic wars, and disputes for hegemony on the South American continent provide further background to the making of the Portuguese–American slaveholding class, the guarantor of the independence process. While the volume focuses on a remote period of history, its analysis of agendas for the nation offers the opportunity for dialogue with current concerns in Brazil.

Designing Brazil is an effective resource for understanding a long and seminal period of Brazil’s history, which will be of value to scholars of Brazilian history and Latin American history and studies more widely.

About the Author

Jurandir Malerba holds a PhD in history (USP, 1997) and is a full professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford and a visiting professor at Georgetown University, United States, and at Freie Universität, Berlin, where he inaugurated the Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Chair in Brazilian Studies.

Book Details

Title: Designing Brazil

Author: Jurandir Malerba

Publisher: ‎Routledge

Publication Date: June 29, 2025

Language: ‎English

Paperback: 290 pp

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