Seth Garfield's book fills a gap in the historiography by providing the first thorough study on the history of guaraná. Using a variety of sources such as missionary accounts, scientific journals, government reports, newspapers, advertisements, and ethnographies the author provides a fascinating interdisciplinary study on the plant from the time it was domesticated by the Sateré-Mawé people in the lower Amazon region to its becoming a major ingredient “of a multibillion-dollar soft drink industry” (4). Though it has never achieved the worldwide fame of some other soft drinks, guaraná has become a staple on Brazilian tables and the major rival to Coca-Cola.
As much as a historical study, the author offers an anthropological analysis of the plant and the impact it has had on the Sateré-Mawé people who domesticated the plant, possibly a century before the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500. The book shows that the continued existence of the plant mirrors that of its domesticators. Not only did guaraná survive European colonization and its suppression of indigenous knowledge, but taking into consideration the massive demographic decline of the Greater Amazonia, “the Sateré-Mawé may be viewed as survivors of genocide” (12).
The book accomplishes the difficult task of covering a long timeline—from pre-Columbian times to the twenty-first century, when the plant came to be widely used in energy drinks throughout the world. As the author explains: “I trace the knowledge production and circulation of guaraná in disparate historical eras and situations: from an Indigenous cultivar to a colonial-era missionizing concern and regional trade commodity; from an object of Western scientific study and classification to an Anglo-American pharmaceutical novelty to a mass-consumed soft drink; from a moral crusade and geopolitical agenda to an emblem of Brazilian national development and identity” (7).
Garfield points out that unlike coffee, chocolate, tobacco, and other products adopted by Europeans following on colonization, guaraná remained popular mostly in Brazil, which is the only remaining country involved in the commercial cultivation of the plant. As a consequence, the plant has become a symbol of Brazil, forming with soccer and samba a “part of Brazilian nationalist iconography” (150).
In addition, the book illustrates how the production of guaraná intertwines with the history of positivism and the desire to deal with Brazil's alleged backwardness through scientific progress. One of the main actors in the development of guaraná, the physician Luis Pereira Barreto, believed not only in industrial development, but also in the positive impact the plant could have as a stimulant to the “poorly nourished populations” (105) who could benefit physically and intellectually from the plant. As Garfield shows, Barreto was truly committed to his nation's industrial development and influenced the mass production of the soft drink by soda companies.
The book also contributes to the historiography of migration to the Amazonas state by showing the initiative of immigrants and first-generation entrepreneurs in boosting the trade of guaraná in the early part of the twentieth century. Despite the small percentage of immigrants in the population of that state, a Syrian, a Moroccan Jew, a Portuguese, Italians, and a Brazilian from the state of Ceará were instrumental in the development of the guaraná economy there.
These are just some of the themes raised by Garfield in this complex, well-connected, superb book, which will be of interest to a variety of scholars from various disciplines, including those who are non-Brazilianists.
