Perspectives on citizenship in Imperial Brazil

Edited by José Murilo de Carvalho and Adriana Pereira Campos, *Perspectives of Citizenship in Imperial Brazil* presents reflections on issues that remained unresolved in the 19th century and pervaded the 20th century. Civilization, progress, sovereignty of peoples, freedom, and equality are some of the themes that gain a Brazilian perspective from the perspective of citizenship. An example of the value of the collective work of the Center for Nineteenth-Century Studies, the articles are the result of two seminars, one national and one international, and were widely debated by Brazilian and international experts. "Formed with the immodest intention of not limiting itself to increasing the number of works on the 19th century, (the group) also sought to bring renewal and innovation. With this purpose in mind, it established certain guidelines. The most important of these was diversity," the organizers assess. Three major axes guide the ideas presented by the researchers: State and Representation; Ideas and Culture; and Law and Economics. From them, the authors discuss topics such as “The press and the Ministry: slavery and the Civil War in the newspapers of Rio de Janeiro (1862-1863)”; they explore literature in the article “Beyond literary friendship: letters from João do Rio to João de Barros (1912-1921)”; and they discuss politics in texts such as “Politics without citizenship: elections in the brotherhoods of black men”. The result is the emergence of a robust historiographical movement focused on the 19th century, in addition to the emergence of new perspectives of analysis, new concepts, interpretations and broader and more in-depth hypotheses.