Abstract:
Richard Morse was a widely read author in Latin America and particularly in Mexico and Brazil. His book O espelho de Próspero, never published in the US, had considerable impact in both countries. In Mexico, the Historian´s work impressed most of all the liberal writers who published Vuelta, who used the Weberian concept of patrimonialism, which the historian had first employed, to understand obstacles to Latin America´s modernization. In Brazil, on the other hand, Morse´s writings interested most of all some of the Gramscian intellectuals who published Presença, who felt attracted by his positive view about the Iberian tradition. Complicating things, a Mexican, the Hegelian Leopoldo Zea, has, as the Presença group, a positive assessment of his tradition. In contrast, Brazilian liberals, such as José Guilherme Merquior and Simon Schwartzman, are not far from Vuelta´s views on Latin Americas troubles. Still, other opinions are espoused by the Mexican Mauricio Tenorio and the Brazilian Otávio Velho. The article confronts these positions with Morse’s own works on Latin America - written over a duration of more than forty years - to evaluate to what point it allows quite different interpretations and what they indicate about the own concerns of his Mexican and Brazilian readers.
Keywords:
Richard Morse; Mexico; Brazil; Interpretations