Book, From slavery to free labor: Brazil 1550-1900[LS]

From slavery to free labor - an original and comprehensive work on the relations between capital and labor in Brazil before the 20th century - originates from Luiz Aranha Corrêa do Lago's doctoral thesis at Harvard University, defended in the late 1970s. Due to its recognized importance in the bibliography of the country's economic history, the research remained unpublished for more than three decades, accessible only in some university libraries. With this first Brazilian edition of the revised and adapted text of the thesis, Corrêa do Lago's rigorous and innovative work finally becomes available to a wide audience of scholars and history lovers. Professor at the Department of Economics at PUC-RJ, the author's starting point is a massive set of statistical data - ranging from demography to agrarian structure, from the production of agricultural and mineral goods to Brazil's foreign trade - relating to the colonial and imperial and the first years of the Old Republic. Corrêa do Lago enriches the analysis of this data with graphs, tables, maps and explanatory notes to explore the main theme of his research: the transition from slave to wage labor from the mid-19th century onwards, the initial milestone of industrialization and urbanization in Brazil . “The various plots that polyphonically make up the plot of this book are so well told that, from now on, From Slavery to Free Labor will become indispensable, if not mandatory, reading for scholars and history lovers.” - Alberto da Costa e Silva