Bridging the Island explores the interplay between Brazilianinterpretations of the national Self and the Spanish-American Otherduring the critical years spanning the demise of slavery and monarchy, the two central institutions that set Brazil apart from the countries surrounding it for decades in the nineteenth century. Their fall ledto the discovery and construction-both hopeful and fearful, consciousand unconscious-of sameness with Brazil's neighbors, grounded inshared historical experiences and common fates. What emerged was aJanus-faced "Latin America" associated with Western-style "order andprogress" as much as with autochthonous caudillism and backwardness.Shifting attention away from relationships between the Latin Americanperiphery and the North Atlantic center to transnational gazes anddialogues within Latin America, this book makes an originalcontribution to the intellectual history of Brazil, and opens a freshperspective on the fashioning of collective identities in the regionas a whole.
