Millenarian Vision, Capitalist Reality: Brazil's Contestado Rebellion, 1912-1916

by Diacon, Todd A.

• ISBN13: 9780822311676
• ISBN10: 0822311674
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780822382218
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-10-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr
• More Book Details

Summary

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 Realitydepicts 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 smallholdersrs" subsistence, sparking rebellion among the Contestado peasants. Unlike most analysis of millenarian movements, Diacon combines a material analysis with a careful exploration of the movementrs"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.