The Past as Future?

• Author: Marcos Antonio da Silva
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221109501
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221109501

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 246, Vol. 49 No. 5, September 2022, 234–247

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221109501

© 2022 Latin American Perspectives

234

Book Review

The Past as Future?

by

Marcos Antonio da Silva

Translated by

Victoria Furio

Breno Bringel and Antonio Brasil Jr. Antología del pensamiento crítico brasileño

contemporáneo. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2018.

The diversity, challenges, and major problems pervading contemporary

Brazilian society, along with the colonial heritage that continues to reappear in its

social and economic practices and its political relations, have become a favorable

area for the development of Brazilian social thought, from the classics to current

perspectives. They have also fostered the development of critical reflection on the

classics of Latin American and world thought and made possible the emer-

gence—alongside of false governmental or religious idiosyncrasies—of critical

thinking based on the national reality, whose fundamental features are inequality

and the economic, political, and social challenges of a racist, unjust, and utilitar-

ian society. Despite recent progress, significant sectors of Brazilian society and

the intelligentsia continue to ignore (or, worse, devalue) Latin America and its

social thought, which has proliferated very fruitfully in countries such as

Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Cuba. Brazilian social

thought in its various facets is recognized in the region, and Brazilian works by

Celso Furtado, Theotônio dos Santos, Ruy Mauro Marini, Fernando Henrique

Cardoso, and others have achieved global scope through contact, joint produc-

tion, and widespread dissemination of this thought in Latin American centers.

Since at least the 1960s, Latin America has acknowledged and circulated Brazilian

thought while, unfortunately, Latin American thought (classic and contempo-

rary) continues to be disregarded or marginalized by the Eurocentric perspective

of the Brazilian academy and society. Brengel and Brasil Jr.’s Antología del pensa-

miento crítico brasileño contemporáneo once again demonstrates Latin American

interest in Brazilian social thought and constitutes an important effort in under-

standing the diversity, richness, and explanatory (and transformational) poten-

tial of the critical thought of the late twentieth century, which remains relevant in

light of the country’s recent situation.

The undertaking was organized by Breno Bringel, a Hispanic-Brazilian who

researches Latin American social theory at the Universidade Estadual do Rio

de Janeiro, and Antonio Brasil Jr., a professor at the Universidade Federal do

Rio de Janeiro who has devoted himself to the study of social thought and

Brazilian sociological theory. It is part of the series Países in the Antologías del

Marcos Antonio da Silva is a professor in the Social Sciences degree program and the Postgraduate

Program in Sociology of the Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados. Victoria Furio is a trans-

lator and conference interpreter located in Yonkers, NY.

1109501LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221109501Silva/THE PAST AS FUTURE?

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