MARTHA S. SANTOS: Cleansing Honor with Blood: Masculinity, Violence, and Power in the Backlands of Northeast Brazil, 1845-1889. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012.

Abstract

Dilma Rousseff’s historic victory in the 2010 presidential election depended on sweeping the Brazilian northeast. She triumphed in a region habitually described by its impoverishment, natural calamities, and a longstanding regard for violence as the basis of authority. Repeated ad nauseam about the northeast in general, and its sertão, or hinterlands, in particular, these attributes have acquired a timeless and inherent quality. What, then, can Dilma’s resounding electoral performance suggest about the changing codes of public life in the northeast?