The Color of Modernity: S¦o Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil

In *The Color of Modernity*, Barbara Weinstein focuses on race, gender, and regionalism in the formation of national identities in Brazil; this focus allows her to explore how uneven patterns of economic development are consolidated and understood. Organized around two principal episodes-the 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution and 1954's IV Centen¦rio, the quadricentennial of S¦o Paulo's founding-this book shows how both elites and popular sectors in S¦o Paulo embraced a regional identity that emphasized their European origins and aptitude for modernity and progress, attributes that became-and remain-associated with "whiteness." This racialized regionalism naturalized and reproduced regional inequalities, as S¦o Paulo became synonymous with prosperity while Brazil's Northeast, a region plagued by drought and poverty, came to represent backwardness and S¦o Paulo's racial "Other." This view of regional difference, Weinstein argues, led to development policies that exacerbated these inequalities and impeded democratization.