The Masters and the Slaves [casa-grande & senzala]; A study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956. Second English Language Edition, Revised. Presumed first printing thus. Hardcover. Good. lxxi, [1], 537, [1], xliv, [4] pages. Illustrations (including fold-out). Footnotes. Preface to the First English-Language Edition. Preface to the Second English-Language Edition. Translator's Acknowledgments. Plans showing Big House of the Noruega Plantation. Glossary of Brazilian Terms Used. Bibliography. Index of Names. Index of Subjects. Gilberto de Mello Freyre KBE (March 15, 1900 - July 18, 1987) was a Brazilian sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, painter, journalist and congressman, born in Recife, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He is commonly associated with other major Brazilian cultural interpreters of the first half of the 20th century, such as Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Caio Prado Júnior. His best-known work is a sociological treatise named Casa-Grande & Senzala (literally, "The main house and the slave quarters," as on a traditional plantation, although the book title is usually translated as The Masters and the Slaves). In 1962, Freyre was awarded the Prêmio Machado de Assis by the Brazilian Academy of Letters, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of Brazilian literature. Over the course of his long career, Freyre received numerous other awards, honorary degrees, and other honors both in Brazil and internationally. Examples include admission to L'ordre des Arts et Lettres (France), investiture as Grand Officier de La Légion d'Honneur (France), investiture as Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the Gran-Cruz of the Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique (Portugal), and honorary doctorates at Columbia University and the Sorbonne. Freyre's most widely known work is The Masters and the Slaves (1933). At the time, this was a revolutionary work for the study of races and cultures in Brazil. As Lucia Lippi Oliveira notes, "In the 1930s and 1940s, Freyre was praised as being the creator of a new, positive self-image of Brazil, one that overcame the racism present in authors like Sílvio Romero, Euclides da Cunha, and Oliveira Viana." The book is a turning point in the analysis of the black heritage in Brazil, which is highly extolled by Freyre. His effort both to rehabilitate the black culture and identify Brazil as a conciliatory country is comparable to the ones of other Latin American writers, such as Fernando Ortiz in Cuba (Contrapunteo Cubano de Tobacco y Azúcar, 1940), and José Vasconcelos in Mexico (La Raza Cosmica, 1926). The Masters and the Slaves is the first of a series of three books, which also included The Mansions and the Shanties: The Making of Modern Brazil (1938) and Order and Progress: Brazil from Monarchy to Republic (1957). The trilogy is generally considered a classic of modern cultural anthropology and social history. Published in 1933, Casa-Grande e Senzala (English: The Masters and the Slaves) is a book by Gilberto Freyre, about the formation of Brazilian society. The casa-grande ("big house") refers to the slave owner's residence on a sugarcane plantation, where whole towns were owned and managed by one man. The senzala ("slave quarters") refers to the dwellings of the black working class, where they originally worked as slaves, and later as servants. The book deals with race/class separation and miscegenation and is generally considered a classic of modern cultural anthropology. In Freyre's opinion, the hierarchy imposed by those in the Casa-Grande was an expression of a patriarchal society. In this book the author refutes the idea that Brazilians were an "inferior race" because of race-mixing. He points to the positive elements that permeated Brazilian culture because of miscegenation (especially among the Portuguese, Indians, and Africans). Portugal, like Brazil, is described as being culturally and racially influenced by "an energetic infusion of Moorish and Negro blood, the effects of which persist to this day in the Portuguese people and the Portuguese character"