History at the Roots: Modernity, Cordiality and the Middle Class in <i>Raízes do Brasil</i>

Abstract

“Trouxemos de terras estranhas um sistema complexo e acabado depreceitos, sem saber até que ponto se ajustam às condições da vidabrasileira e sem cogitar das mudanças que tais condições lhe imporiam.Na verdade, a ideologia impessoal do liberalismo democrático jamaisse naturalizou entre nós.”“We brought from foreign lands a complex and accomplished system ofprecepts, without knowing to what point they were consistent with theconditions of Brazilian life and without thinking about the changes theseconditions would impose on them. In truth, the impersonal ideology ofdemocratic liberalism was never naturalized among us.”Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Raízes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil, 1936)