This innovative volume traces Brazil's singular character, exploring both the remarkable richness and cohesion of the national culture and the contradictions and tensions that have developed over time. What shared experiences and memories give its citizens their sense of being Brazilian? What metaphors and stereotypes of identity have emerged? The contributors-a multidisciplinary group of U.S. and Brazilian scholars-offer a fresh look at questions that have been asked since the early nineteenth century and that continue to drive nationalist discourse today. Their chapters explore Brazilian identity through the interlinked concepts of texts, facts, sights, and sounds, offering a compelling analysis of how nationalism functions as a social, political, and cultural construction in Latin America.

Introduction: A Four-Part Canon for the Analysis of Brazilian National Identity
Part I: Texts
Chapter 1: Machado de Assis and the Question of Brazilian National Identity
Chapter 2: Euclides de Cunha's View of Brazil's Fractured Identity
Chapter 3: Gilberto Freyre's Concept of Culture in The Masters and the Slaves
Part II: Facts
Chapter 4: Brasiliana: Published Works and Collections
Chapter 5: Forging Future Citizens in Brazilian Public Schools, 1937-1945
Part III: Sights
Chapter 6: The Visual Imaging of Brazilian Identity
Chapter 7: Cinematic Images of the Brazilian Indian
Chapter 8: The Emperor and His Pedestal: Pedro I and Disputed Views of the Brazilian Nation, 1860-1900
Part IV: Sounds
Chapter 9: Two Musical Representations of Brazil: Carlos Gomes and Heitor Villa Lobos
Timeline of Brazilian History

Carmen Nava is associate professor of history at California State University, San Marcos. Ludwig Lauerhass Jr. is lecturer emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.