Coffee and Transformation in Sao Paulo, Brazil [Hardcover]

Coffee and Transformation in S?o Paulo, Braziladvances a distinctive interpretation of the dynamism of the S?o Paulo region since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Large and entrepreneurial coffee landlords opened the frontier to the west of the state capital, playing a key role in making the state and Brazil the world's largest coffee producer for international markets. However, many of the immigrant settlers from Italy, Japan, Spain, and other countries emerged as major actors in the last phase of frontier expansion in western S?o Paulo. A substantial number of them found ways to become independent agriculturalists or enact new careers in commerce, industry, and services in the network of towns emerging in this region. This volume pays close attention to the political and economic implications of this region's process of segmentation and transformation, including their links to regionalism, political conflict, and the Revolution of 1930.Mauricio A. Fontis professor of sociology at The Graduate Center and Queens College, City University of New York, where he is also director of the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies.

An earlier entire generation of scholars accepted the equation that during the Old Republic (1889-1930), the increasingly wealthy coffee planters of S?o Paulo dominated its political activities in lockstep with their financial ascendance. In his 1990 study, however, Mauricio Font (Coffee, Contention, and Change in the Making of Modern Brazil, CH, May'91, 28-5265) questioned this widely taught premise, and he demonstrated unequivocally that politics in S?o Paulo were decidedly not unilateral. He did so by singling out the roles of other interests, including those of factory owners and immigrants, which had consistently challenged the domination of the so-called coffee elite. In this updated reissue of his 1990 volume, Font (sociology, Queens College, CUNY) has reprised his pioneering research while substantil#