Henrique Lage

Clóvis Bulcão analyzes the interwar period in Brazil through the biography of one of the tycoons of national industry in the 20th century: Henrique Lage.

Henrique Lage is one of the most important figures in Brazilian business history and entrepreneurship. When the Brazilian state focused solely on coffee, its largest national product, the Rio de Janeiro-born businessman dared to invest in coal, steel, and shipping, elevating the country to a new industrial level. He invested in Santa Catarina's coal industry and expanded the local rail network; built a port in the city of Imbituba; transformed Vianna Island in Guanabara Bay into a cutting-edge industrial hub; and even built South America's first oil tanker.

Beyond his business side, Bulcão portrays Henrique Lage as a man in love: his muse, the Italian opera diva Gabriella Besanzoni, was one of the greatest opera stars, the Maria Callas of her time, a success on stages around the world. After years of courtship, the two married, and ten years later, Gabriella received as a gift what would become one of the most beautiful and most frequented public spaces in Rio de Janeiro: Parque Lage, in the Jardim Botânico neighborhood. Inaugurated as Villa Gabriella, the venue would become famous as a music conservatory (now an art school) and for the flamboyant parties the couple hosted, attended by heads of state and all of Rio's high society during the first half of the last century.

In the setbacks faced by Henrique Lage on his path to Brazil's industrialization, some elements are typical of the Brazilian reality: economic instability; laws enacted today and undone tomorrow; the near-nonexistence of a railway network; plans announced with fanfare but never realized; favoritism; government payments taking far longer than agreed; changes with each change of government. But this book is much more than a biography of the great industrialist. With rich detail and meticulous research, Clóvis Bulcão paints a panorama of Brazil in the early 20th century.