O Brasil imaginado em José Francisco da Rocha Pombo

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the constitution of thinking about the Brazilian national identity, drafted by the first textbooks on the History of Brazil, especially from José Francisco da Rocha Pombo’s history of Brazil published in ten volumes, its first volume was published in 1905, and the last in 1917, characterized as one of the largest and most complete works of the genre, with new editions to the beginning of the decade of 1970. The period in which Rocha Pombo writes is the republican regime consolidation, period in which the history of Brazil takes on new meaning: it was necessary to build a history in progress sign, textbooks now would have a patriotic mission, giving unity to a country characterized by contrasts, building a common past to all Brazilians, thus arousing the feeling of patriotism. In this perspective, the Rocha Pombo’s book History of Brazil points revealing aspects of the Brazil project at the dawn of the Republic, and features a rich source of knowledge about the formation process of thinking about the Brazilian national identity, the great range of his work that was in the hands of several generations of teachers and students throughout the twentieth century.