Nordeste: violência e política no século XX

Abstract

By focusing on the general situation in which political changes became comprehendible in the Brazilian Northeast, since the second half of the 19th century, the author shows a slow decomposition of the social system founded on the latifundio (large rural land holding), slave labor and export monocrop. It described a structure of diffused violence, that constituted an instrument of power distribution. Under such a view, by examining the industrialization of the country, it pointed to modifications of productive forces and the forging of alliances between the national public power and the private local power. Furthermore, it focused, on the organization of the “Ligas Camponsas” (Peasant leagues) and rural workers unions in the Northeast in a span of two decades, 1950s and 1960s.