Teaching about the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964–85)

Abstract This guideline to “Politics and Culture during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship,” a course the author has offered almost every year at Brown University for the last two decades, draws on his research on this period in Brazilian history. The course features an intensive consideration of the historiographic debates about the nature of the regime, the internal dynamics within the armed forces, and the processes that led to the slow-motion, decade-long return to democratic rule. Because the economy had a direct impact on citizens’ day-to-day lives and became a source of legitimacy for the regime, the course pays close attention to the dictatorship’s economic policies, especially the efforts to control inflation in the 1960s, the effects of the dramatic increase in the gross domestic product between 1968 and 1973—known as the “Brazilian Economic Miracle”—and the results of the crises that ensued after the 1973–74 oil price shock. The course uses feature films and documentaries, requires students to create characters that lived through the period, and offers a diverse set of primary and secondary sources. It has proven quite popular for students willing to take on the heavy workload.