Tradition and modernity in Brazil: the culturalist conservatism of Gilberto Freyre

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to contribute to future academic analyzes on culturalist conservatism inscribed in the intellectual trajectory of Gilberto de Mello Freyre (1900-1987) from Pernambuco. Culturalist conservatism is one of the conservative lineages constant in political and social thought in Brazil, past and present. Methodologically, we describe the European and North American intellectual heritages that influenced Freyrean thought. That conservatism had its genesis in the Victorian British authors, with whom Gilberto Freyre kept in touch during his youth in the United States and Europe, notably at the University of Oxford.