Overview

In The Tribute of Blood Peter M. Beattie analyses the transformation of army [enlisted] recruitment and service in Brazil between 1864 and 1945, using this history of common soldiers to examine nation building and the social history of Latin America's largest nation. Tracing the army's reliance on coercive recruitment to fill its lower ranks, Beattie shows how enlisted service became associated with criminality, perversion, and dishonour, as nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Brazilian officials rounded up the ""dishonourable"" poor - including petty criminals, vagrants, and ""sodomites"" -and forced them to serve as soldiers. Beattie looks through sociological, anthropological, and historical lenses to analyse archival sources such as court martial cases, parliamentary debates, published reports, and the memoirs and correspondence of soldiers and officers. Combining these materials with a colourful array of less traditional sources - such as song lyrics, slang, grammatical evidence, and tattoo analysis - he reveals how the need to reform military recruitment with a conscription lottery became increasingly apparent in the wake of the Paraguayan War of 1865-1870 and again during World War I. Because this crucial reform required more than changing the army's institutional roles and the conditions of service, The Tribute of Blood is ultimately the story of how entrenched conceptions of manhood, honour, race, citizenship, and nation were transformed throughout Brazil. Those interested in social, military, and South American history, state building and national identity, and the sociology of the poor will be enriched by this path-breaking study.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter M. Beattie
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.70cm , Length: 23.20cm
Weight:   0.630kg
ISBN:  

9780822327431

ISBN 10:   0822327430
Pages:   277
Publication Date:   26 September 2001
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Illustrations Acknowledgments Author’s Note Abbreviations and Acronyms Introduction: Soldiers of Misfortune, Soldiers by Lot I. Impressment, Penal Transportation, Defense, and Politics, 1549-1905 1. “Nabbing Time”: The Heritage of Portugal’s Gunpowder Empire, 1549-1905 2. Raising the “Pagan Rabble”: Wartime Impressment and the Crisis of National Recruitment, 1864-1870 3. The “Law of the Minotaur”? Postwar Reformism and the Recruitment of Law, 1870-1874 4. Whipping a Dead Letter: The 1874 Recruitment Law under the Empire, 1874-1889 5. “And One Calls This Misery a Republic?”: The 1874 Recruitment Law under the Early Republic, 1889-1905 II. Soldiers, Their Lives, and the Army’s Institutional Roles, 1850-1919 6. The Troop Trade and the Army as a Protopenal Institution in the Age of Impressment, 1850-1916 7. Brazilian Soldiers and Enlisted Service in the Age of Impressment, 1870-1916 8. Days of Caschaca, Sodomy, and the Lash: Army Crime and Punishment in the Age of Impressment, 1870-1916 III. Implementing Conscription and Reorienting the Army’s Role, 1906 9. “Tightening Screw” or “Admirable Filter”?: The 1908 Obligatory Military Service Law, 1906-1916 10. Making the Barracks a “House” and the Army a “Family”: Assessing the Conscription Lottery, 1916-1945 Conclusions: Army, Masculine Honor, Race, and Nation Appendix A: Military Crime Data Appendix B: Army Recruitment Data Appendix C: Populations of Public Disciplining Institutions Notes Glossary of Portuguese Terms Bibliography Index

Reviews

"""A marvellous and broadly conceived study of great sweep, impressive documentation, and original insight. Beattie shows us how an imaginative study of the military can greatly illuminate issues of masculinity, nationalism, race, social control, and bondage. Its attention to comparative history, its focus on explaining change, and the care and grace of its writing make it something of a model of what institutional histories can achieve.""-James C. Scott, Yale University ""This is the most original work on Brazilian social history by a U.S. scholar in the last fifteen years. Events and issues become newly understandable in Peter M. Beattie's presentation of military recruitment as a direct measure of state-building in Brazil"" - Dain Borges, University of California, San Diego"

A marvellous and broadly conceived study of great sweep, impressive documentation, and original insight. Beattie shows us how an imaginative study of the military can greatly illuminate issues of masculinity, nationalism, race, social control, and bondage. Its attention to comparative history, its focus on explaining change, and the care and grace of its writing make it something of a model of what institutional histories can achieve. -James C. Scott, Yale University This is the most original work on Brazilian social history by a U.S. scholar in the last fifteen years. Events and issues become newly understandable in Peter M. Beattie's presentation of military recruitment as a direct measure of state-building in Brazil - Dain Borges, University of California, San Diego

A marvellous and broadly conceived study of great sweep, impressive documentation, and original insight. Beattie shows us how an imaginative study of the military can greatly illuminate issues of masculinity, nationalism, race, social control, and bondage. Its attention to comparative history, its focus on explaining change, and the care and grace of its writing make it something of a model of what institutional histories can achieve. -James C. Scott, Yale University This is the most original work on Brazilian social history by a U.S. scholar in the last fifteen years. Events and issues become newly understandable in Peter M. Beattie's presentation of military recruitment as a direct measure of state-building in Brazil - Dain Borges, University of California, San Diego

Author Information

Peter M. Beattie is Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University.

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