In this book, Ronald Chilcote offers a wide-ranging study of the evolution of Brazil’s intellectual debates since 1930. He advances a central argument, namely, that there was a regional cleavage in Brazilian intellectual life: Whereas Rio intellectuals “envisaged the state and the national bourgeoisie as the means to overcome dependency on foreign ideas and culture, São Paulo intellectuals looked to civil society, and the establishment of new academic institutions in the search for national identity”(p. iv).

The book is organized around four themes: the struggle of intellectuals to transcend a sense of inferiority; the search for a sense of national identity; the efforts of São Paulo intellectuals to empirically analyze issues of class differentiation, racial discrimination, and social change; and Brazilian intellectuals’ thinking about underdevelopment and dependency. Chilcote draws on Antonio Gramsci in his conceptualization of intellectuals, particularly on the notion of organic intellectuals who are involved in “counterhegemonic struggle.” Moreover, he does not circumscribe his analysis to the intelligentsia (whose intellectual interests are fundamentally technical), but also includes “scholars, teachers, and others” (p. 6) in his analysis.

In the introduction, the author poses a number of research questions to be developed in the subsequent chapters, including questions about intellectuals’ political and class positions. In typical Marxist language he asks: “To what extent do intellectuals empathize with the bourgeoisie or proletariat? How do they identify their class positions and class-consciousness? Is the content of their ideas and knowledge shaped by bourgeois ideals associated with the emerging capitalist society, or does it serve to counter the bourgeoisie outlook?”(p. 8). In addition, Chilcote poses similar questions regarding the content of these individuals’ intellectual work: “Are the intellectuals inspired by positivist and liberal views or by Marxist perspectives, and did this lead to any practical outcome? Finally, are they interested in gradual change within an evolving capitalist accumulation, or do they see socialism as an alternative?” (p. 9). The scholarly work of intellectuals is thus to be evaluated in terms of the extent to which they stick to their ideals: “Have they simply retreated from their ideals and aspirations and concentrated on their professional careers within university or the state?” (p. 9).

These narrow research questions greatly reduce the potential contribution of the book for an understanding of the role of intellectuals in Brazil. Important themes in the country’s intellectual history, including race relations, regionalism, and patrimonialism, cannot be adequately developed from these questions and a framework centered on class analysis. However, and somehow intriguingly, they are not a straitjacket for much of the subsequent empirical analysis, which is detailed and rich. In fact, the book’s scholarly contribution is primarily empirical: It draws on almost a hundred interviews, extensive fieldwork, and primary data collection carried out over 30 years. Chapters 2 and 3 provide extensive original treatment of left intellectuals at the University of São Paulo (USP) and Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s and 1960s.

Chilcote builds on his earlier work on the history of the Brazilian Communist Party and on dependency theory and related approaches to underdevelopment. Much of the terrain covered in the book has already been the subject of extensive research by Brazilian and international scholars. This includes, for example, studies of the ISEB (Instituto Superior de Estudos Brasileiros, a think tank for nationalist intellectuals and policymakers, which was very influential in the 1950s); the evolution of social science research at USP; the emergence of political science and sociology as autonomous political disciplines; and of Marxist intellectuals, study groups, and think tanks, such as Cebrap (founded by Fernando H. Cardoso and colleagues) and others; and the emergence of dependency theory and development. However, there is no single volume either in English or Portuguese that offers a comprehensive treatment of all of these groups and ideas, and Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity therefore fills a gap in the literature.

Nevertheless, the book’s title is a misnomer: Its sole focus is on left intellectuals, scholars, and political activists, and does not consider the contributions made by intellectuals from other ideological persuasions to the development of Brazil’s national identity in the last century. Chilcote seems aware of this focus: “[W]e examined intellectual thought with ideas, theories, and strategies for change emanating from progressive ideologies and movements such as anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, socialism, communism, and Trotskyism to provide for a historical framework” (p. 225). The exclusion of liberal and mainstream authors has a price, however: Some themes, including race, nationalism, and representative democracy, have been extensively discussed by non-Marxist and “progressive” writers. Their omission therefore has important consequences.

For example, Gilberto Freyre, the author of the pathbreaking The Masters and the Slaves (1933), who forged the view of Brazil as a racial democracy, was a major conservative writer and a harsh critic of Getulio Vargas. Important and influential liberal thinkers debated constitutionalism extensively, as well as representative democracy and the rule of law, in twentieth-century Brazil, but their work is not treated in any depth, only referenced in passing. This is an important omission, as these intellectuals’ work confronted oligarchic rule from a liberal perspective, and they were influential in the resistance against military rule, particularly during the New Republic inaugurated in 1985.

The book’s limited analytical focus and narrow research questions also weaken the discussion of the institutionalization of social sciences in Brazil and the rise of Brazilian university mandarins. This discussion does not benefit from contemporary debates and arguments developed in such fields as the sociology of education and intellectual history. The development of professionalism in the social sciences in Brazil, as elsewhere, was a struggle against journalistic and impressionist accounts of the country’s social and political malaises. And this is irreducible to class analysis. To ask if they have “simply retreated from their ideals” is misleading. Finally, on a minor note, in the empirical chapters, particularly Chapter 3, individual authors and activists are enumerated without a sense of hierarchical importance. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, arguably one of the most important public intellectuals in the 20th century, is discussed along with secondary authors, some of whom may not even be recognized by many Brazil experts. On the whole, however, the book is well written and edited (except for the references and list of interviews, which contain numerous incorrect Portuguese entries).

Overall, Intellectuals and the Search for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil is an important empirical contribution. Readers will greatly benefit from the wealth of detailed information presented in the empirical chapters, despite its relatively narrow focus and limited theoretical contribution.