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Rebellion in the Backlands

An unforgettable epic history of war and rebellion that has been called "the Bible of Brazilian nationality."

Euclides da Cunha's classic account of the brutal campaigns against religious mystic Antonio Conselheiro has been praised by readers around the world as perhaps the greatest book ever written about Brazil. An epic of nonfiction that reads like a novel, it has been hailed by the likes of Stefan Zweig and Elizabeth Hardwick for its prose and its insights into the character of Brazil as the nation was being formed. Da Cunha tells the story of a guerrilla rebellion in the remote village of Canudos that fought the central government from 1893 to 1897, of the challenging conditions that led the people to revolt, and of the violent repression that resulted. A national epic like no other, Rebellion in the Backlands is a lasting classic, a book that has been handed from reader to reader for decades.
 

562 pages | 5.25 x 8 | © 1957

History: Latin American History, Military History

Latin American Studies

Reviews

“Euclides da Cunha went on the campaigns [against Conselheiro] as a journalist and what he returned with and published in 1902 is still unsurpassed in Latin American literature. Cunha is a talent as grand, spacious, entangled with knowledge, curiosity, and bafflement as the country itself. . . . On every page there is a heart of idea, speculation, dramatic observation that tells of a creative mission undertaken, the identity of the nation, and also the creation of a pure and eloquent prose style.”

Elizabeth Hardwick | Bartleby in Manhattan

"A great national epic. . . . A complete psychological picture of the Brazilian soil, the people, and the country, such as has never been achieved with equal insight and psychological perception. Comparable in world literature perhaps to The Seven Pillars of Wisdom."

Stefan Zweig

"Our finest book."

Agripino Grieco | "The Evolution of Brazilian Prose"

Table of Contents

Maps
Preliminary Note, by the Author
Part I. The Backlands
I. The Land
II. Man
Part II. The Rebellion
III. The Conflict Begins
IV. The Crossing of Mount Cambaio
V. The Moreira Cesar Expedition
VI. The Fourth Expedition
VII. The Savaget Column
VIII. The Assault
IX. New Phase of the Struggle
X. Last Days
Principal Events of the Canudos Campaign
Author’s Notes to the Third Edition
Bibliography of the Works of Euclides da Cunha
Acknowledgments and Editorial Note
Glossaries
List of Botanical and Zoological Terms
List of Terms in Regional Use
Indexes
Index of Names
Index of Subjects

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