Samba is Brazil’s "national rhythm, " the foremost symbol of its culture and nationhood. To the outsider, samba and the famous pre-Lenten carnival of which it is the centerpiece seem to showcase the country’s African heritage. Within Brazil, however, samba symbolizes the racial and cultural mixture that, since the 1930s, most Brazilians have come to believe defines their unique national identity. But how did Brazil become "the Kingdom of Samba" only a few decades after abolishing slavery in 1888? Typically, samba is represented as having changed spontaneously, mysteriously, from a "repressed" music of the marginal and impoverished to a national symbol cherished by all Brazilians. Here, however, Hermano Vianna shows that the nationalization of samba actually rested on a long history of relations between different social groups–poor and rich, weak and powerful–often working at cross-purposes to one another. A fascinating exploration of the "invention of tradition, " The Mystery of Samba is an excellent introduction to Brazil’s ongoing conversation on race, popular culture, and national identity.
Related Products
A quantifiable framework for unlocking the unconscious forces
that shape markets
There has long been a notion that subliminal forces play a great
part in causing the seemingly irrational financial …
The speed of light, the fine structure constant, and Newton’s constant of gravity â these are just three among the many physical constants that define our picture of the world. Where do they come …
One of the most significant unsolved problems in mathematics is the complete classification of knots. The main purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to the use of computer programming to …
With a foreword by James Randi Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has spent more than thirty years solving the world’s most perplexing mysteries. This new casebook reveals the secrets of the …
The Party and state leadership in Beijing was rudely awakened to the fact that the state bureaucracies in charge of public security had no idea of Falun Gong’s leadership and its functions on April …
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.