Dictators and Democracy

The First Vargas Regime in Brazil, 1930-1945

The first regime of Brazil’s Getulio Vargas is often compared with other authoritarian regimes of the 1930s. In many ways, this makes perfect sense: between 1937 and 1945, Vargas abolished political parties and suspended civil liberties. He brooked no political opposition. But, in other ways, the first Vargas regime was surprisingly flexible. This workshop explores this flexibility in the regime’s cultural policy, which embraced modernism as a defining element of one version of Brazilian nationalism.

Speakers

Daryle Williams
Daryle Williams
Associate Professor of HistoryUniversity of Maryland