A Journey in Brazil

Louis Agassiz sheds insight into Brazil's history: his travels took place in the 1860s, when the country was undergoing great change as an Empire and grappling with its this development.


The author offers eye-opening accounts of a Brazil now lost to time; observations of the urban culture and life, and the natural habitat of the countryside and forests, offer the reader immense insight into the era. Most of the text is written as a narrative diary, wherein Agassiz observes and describes traversing colonial-era Rio de Janeiro, the city of Manaus, the Amazon river, various small towns and villages, and the vast rainforests.


As a zoologist, Agassiz's interest in the diverse wildlife present in Brazil forms a recurring theme in this book. However, the text is careful not to dwell too long on matters obscure or scientific; while the author is clearly at work, he also covers matters of culture and day-to-day life. Anecdotes include lectures which Brazil's Emperor Pedro II attended; the leader arranges the room's chairs that he sits equally with other attendees - reasoning that science does not distinguish people by rank or position.


As Agassiz and his company travel through Brazil, we are treated to many vignettes of life. The fiestas, street scenes and atmosphere of the locales are evocatively described. We hear of bustling markets and harbors, plazas in which coffee beans dry, the periodic hunting, and an enmeshed, diverse society blending European habits and native customs. The beginnings of modernity, such as plans for railroads, are also detailed. In a later portion of the book Agassiz expounds on differences between what he terms the 'human races' - opinions which have since come into disrepute.


This new edition of A Journey in Brazil reproduces the twenty-five illustrations of the original 1868 text, as well as the author's appendices and notes.