Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"An essential contribution for reflecting on what is at stake in academic exchange based on empirical research." * Brésil(s) *
"What Merkel proposes is a subversion of what are seen as the traditional logics of intellectual history, an approach whose importance derives from the names involved. Even the most firmly established figures in Brazilian intellectual history, unanimously recognized in their country of origin as seminal in their respective areas of specialization, ultimately could not manage to escape erasure. That is the state of things that
Terms of Exchange proposes to reverse." * Revista de História (São Paulo) *
“A rich examination of the intriguing crossings between Brazilian and French social sciences from the 1930s to the 1950s,
Terms of Exchange offers the first history of the interactions among such characters as Roger Bastide, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Arthur Ramos, Caio Prado Jr., Florestan Fernandes, Paul Rivet, Gilberto Freyre, and Fernand Braudel.” * Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, University of Chicago *
“This book reconsiders the intellectual itineraries of the French professors who came to São Paulo to found USP. Challenging traditional geographies of knowledge, Merkel situates the Brazilian experience of social scientists such as Braudel and Lévi-Strauss at the center of important epistemological inflections of the mid-twentieth century.” * Gabriela Pellegrino Soares, University of São Paulo *
“Merkel explores with brio a little-known episode of transatlantic intellectual history: the prewar dialectics of exchange between a small group of not-yet-famous French visiting professors at the University of São Paulo and their Brazilian hosts. The great merit of the book is to highlight the weight of their Brazilian experience on those who later deeply transformed the French social sciences.” * Philippe Descola, author of Beyond Nature and Culture *
"Merkel's work is a welcome addition to both Brazilian history and to the charting of the twentieth-century social sciences." * The Latin Americanist *
"Attempts to show the close relationship of Northern social sciences to Southern thinkers have been reduced in scope and impact so far. This is why the book
Terms of Exchange by Ian Merkel is more than welcome." * Bulletin of Latin American Research *
"
Terms of Exchange is a relevant contribution to the history of the intellectuals and an important global history exercise that shows, through at least two superposed ‘mana circulation systems’, how entangled the relations among intellectuals from different parts of the world could be if well analyzed." * Storia della Storiografia *
Table of ContentsList of Figures
Introduction
Chapter 1: São Paulo, the New Metropolis with a French University
Chapter 2: Atlantic Crossings and Disciplinary Reformulation
Chapter 3: Getting to Know Brazil: The New Country behind the Methodology
Chapter 4: Four Approaches to Global and Social-Scientific Crisis
Chapter 5: Brazil and the Reconstruction of the French Social Sciences
Chapter 6: Racial Democracy, Métissage, and Decolonization between Brazil and France
En Guise de Conclusion
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations and Archives
Notes
Index
