The Prestes Column

Reviews / Votes

"Jacob Blanc has established himself as one of the leading historians of Brazil of his generation, and in The Prestes Column he takes a genuinely fresh and innovative look at one of the most intriguing episodes in twentieth-century Latin American history. He has identified key issues raised by the history of the Prestes Column that no previous studies have explored, and he has adopted methodologies that will allow us to appreciate the full import of this movement." - Barbara Weinstein, author of (The Color of Modernity: Sao Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil) "Visiting backroads long neglected by historians, and with keen attention to place and narrative, Jacob Blanc brings a much-needed critical eye to the iconic, mythologized Prestes Column. Asking hard why questions, Blanc reads Brazil from the inside out and provides a sophisticated framework for thinking about history, myth, and the many worlds that lie beyond Brazil's coastal centers, whose own mythologies, Blanc shows, reflect and have taken shape in tandem with those of the interior." - Marc A. Hertzman, author of (Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil) "[An] outstanding history of this formative event." - Gavin O'Toole (Latin American Review of Books) "Much of the previous work written about this column has been romanticized, a critique Blanc... levels at Neil Macaulay's classic study, The Prestes Column (1974). By contrast, Blanc's new contribution dissects this mythology, shearing away overblown narrative with informed research. . . . Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." - R. M. Delson (Choice)