Todd Diacon's Stringing Together A Nation is an ambitious book that analyses the growth of the modern Brazilian nation in the first decades of the twentieth century through the examination of army officer Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon's work, political and religious beliefs, as well as the varied interpretation of Rondon's life through Brazilian historiography. Diacon succeeds in stringing together a collection of diverse historical perspectives. In his own words, ‘(t)his is a book about a man, an army commission, a country, and a nation’. Thus, the book is in part a biography of Rondon, in part a technological history of the telegraph as it was first installed in Brazil's Amazon, in part a history of positivism in the first decades of the twentieth century, and finally it is an examination of Rondon's policies towards Brazil's indigenous population and an analysis of how those actions have been interpreted by scholars throughout the twentieth century. Although by 1930 the telegraph had been made obsolete by radio, a younger generation of officers had turned their backs on positivism, and Rondon's legacy was badly tarnished, this book recaptures an important historical moment in Brazil's history.

The early decades of the twentieth century represent a period of enormous changes in Brazil. Following the abolition of slavery (1889) and the not unrelated fall of the Brazilian monarchy (1889), Brazil's economic and political elite sought to recast the young republic in light of the social, political and technological changes that continued to sweep the industrial centres of the world. While this period of radical change affects the entirety of Brazil, too often the quest for modernity is presented as a singular and homogeneous goal. The modernisation of the state becomes a combined effort of police, military officers, artists, architects, the coffee oligarchy, and both state and national politicians. By focusing on the distinguished army officer Rondon – on his military commission, his understanding of Brazil's indigenous population, and his life-long acceptance of positivism as a personal philosophy and religion – Diacon gains an understanding of one man's vision of a modern Brazil, as well as an insight into how his goals clash with other contemporary visions of a modern Brazil.

Rondon himself was of indigenous descent; his father, who died before his son's birth, was white Brazilian, but his mother, who also died early, when Rondon was only two years old, had both Terena and Bororo ancestry. He was raised by an uncle, but turned to the Brazilian army to gain further education. Thus his own ties to both racial groups are symbolic of the synthesis between white and indigenous peoples that he pursued throughout his career. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this study is its intimate view of the contradictory image of Rondon and his political and religious viewpoint that developed throughout the twentieth century. On the one hand the positivist goal of progress and civilisation was patronising towards the indigenous population of Brazil's Northwest; on the other, Rondon's policies were strangely protective and respectful of indigenous society given the rhetoric of the day. Of particular interest are his personal attempts to protect Indian lands surrounding the telegraph lines. His orders to survey lands controlled by Indians, as well as lands usurped by whites, so that they could be ‘legalized for Indian occupation’, offer subtle insight challenging to the common understanding of relations between Brazil's white elite and indigenous populations.

Just as important to Rondon as the work he carried out in the Northwest, was the work of the central office in Rio de Janeiro which publicised his commission to the rest of Brazil. They trumpeted the commission's successes and downplayed any failures. They made use of the development of the lands, the technology of the line, the hardships they surpassed and survived in that wild territory, and the untapped potential of the newly opened lands of the Northwest. In his second chapter, Diacon tells the spirited story of how Rondon allowed his telegraph commission essentially to grind to a halt while he spent more than seven months accompanying Theodore Roosevelt's famous expedition through the Amazon in 1913–14. Rondon understood that the payoff would be widespread publicity, not only within Brazil, but across the world. Overall, Rondon's active participation in self-promotion had a negative impact on how his commission was viewed in Brazilian historiography throughout the twentieth century, and Diacon carefully analyses the radical shift against Rondon in recent decades.

Diacon's study fits into a cluster of recent books in English that use the army as a lens through which to gain a deeper understanding of changes in Brazil. These include Peter Beattie's The Tribute of Blood (Durham, NC, 2001), Hendrik Kraay's Race, State, and Armed Forces in Independent-Era Brazil (Stanford, 2001), Frank McCann's Soldiers of the Pátria (Stanford, 2004), and Shawn Smallman's Fear and Memory in the Brazilian Army and Society, 1889–1954 (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002). Each of these works examines the relationship between the nation and either the overall institution of the army, or the regional importance of this institution. What sets Diacon's book apart is that Stringing Together a Nation is not a history of the Brazilian army; instead it focuses on the beliefs and policies of one officer who used the force of the national institution of the Brazilian army during the early republic to further his own goals of nation building. His book allows the reader to see beyond interactions between the army and the regional elite in the Northwest (though that topic is certainly well documented), and see the impact of one powerful army officer who uses his military commission to further his personal agenda of bringing indigenous communities into the Brazilian citizenship.

This is quite a concise book, and one could criticise Diacon for failing to produce a sufficiently exhaustive study of any one of the important areas he examines; Rondon's biography, positivism, technology or Indian affairs. However, it is the combination of these themes into a coherent whole that provides such a valuable insight into Brazil's growth as a modern nation. Diacon's success stems from his selective examination of these various themes in such a way as to produce a work in which the sum of the book far outweighs its individual parts. In the end, Diacon convincingly argues that it is only through a subtle understanding of both sides of Rondon's legacy that we can hope to analyse his life's work, and its impact on Brazil. This publication goes a long way towards presenting the English-language reader with that narrative. It will appeal to a broad audience of readers, and is a valuable addition in both undergraduate and graduate teaching.