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Millenarian Vision, Capitalist Reality: Brazil's Contestado Rebellion, 1912-1916
Why did a millenarian movement erupt in the Brazilian interior in 1912? Setting out to answer this deceptively simple question, Todd A. Diacon delivers a fascinating account of a culture in crisis.
Combining oral history with detailed archival research, Millenarian Vision, Capitalist Reality depicts a peasant community whose security in economic, social, and religious relations was suddenly disrupted by the intrusion of international capital. Diacon shows how a “deadly triumvirate” comprised to foreign capital, state power, and local bosses engineered a land tenure revolution that threatened smallholders’ subsistence, sparking rebellion among the Contestado peasants.
Unlike most analysis of millenarian movements, Diacon combines a material analysis with a careful exploration of the movement’s millenarian ideology to demonstrate how a particular combination of external and internal forces produced a crisis of values in the Contestado society. Such a crisis, Diacon concludes, gave a special power to the millenarian vision that promised not only outward reform, but inner salvation as well. This work offers a significant contribution to the literature of millenarian movements, popular religion, peasant rebellions, and the transition to capitalism in Brazil.
Combining oral history with detailed archival research, Millenarian Vision, Capitalist Reality depicts a peasant community whose security in economic, social, and religious relations was suddenly disrupted by the intrusion of international capital. Diacon shows how a “deadly triumvirate” comprised to foreign capital, state power, and local bosses engineered a land tenure revolution that threatened smallholders’ subsistence, sparking rebellion among the Contestado peasants.
Unlike most analysis of millenarian movements, Diacon combines a material analysis with a careful exploration of the movement’s millenarian ideology to demonstrate how a particular combination of external and internal forces produced a crisis of values in the Contestado society. Such a crisis, Diacon concludes, gave a special power to the millenarian vision that promised not only outward reform, but inner salvation as well. This work offers a significant contribution to the literature of millenarian movements, popular religion, peasant rebellions, and the transition to capitalism in Brazil.
- GenresHistory
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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October 28, 2010
I had to read this for my History of Brazil class.
Diacon's attempts to establish the facts of the Contestado Rebellion and its causes, in spite of the lack of sources, is praiseworthy, even brave. So is his honesty about just how sparse his evidence is. After all, if historians only developed theories about events they had plenty of evidence for, history would be a lot smaller and a lot less interesting. Diacon's theories, particularly about co-godparenthood, are food for thought, but in the end, not entirely convincing. His sources are simply too thin and stretched too far to hold the conclusions he makes.
Diacon's attempts to establish the facts of the Contestado Rebellion and its causes, in spite of the lack of sources, is praiseworthy, even brave. So is his honesty about just how sparse his evidence is. After all, if historians only developed theories about events they had plenty of evidence for, history would be a lot smaller and a lot less interesting. Diacon's theories, particularly about co-godparenthood, are food for thought, but in the end, not entirely convincing. His sources are simply too thin and stretched too far to hold the conclusions he makes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review