Mauricio A. Font
The state of São Paulo has been the leader of Brazilian modernization, development, and industrialization since the latter part of the nineteenth century. Coffee and Transformation in São Paulo, Brazil (Lexington Books, June 2010) advances a distinctive interpretation of this phenomenon. Large and entrepreneurial coffee landlords opened the frontier west of the state capital, and made up the world’s largest coffee producer. But foreign settlers made a major contribution to the last phase of frontier expansion in western São Paulo. They were an integral part of the dense networks of towns emerging in this region. This volume pays close attention to the political and economic implications of São Paulo’s great transformation and segmentation, including their links to internal conflict, the Brazilian Revolution of 1930, and regionalism.
