Ferment and Change in Brazil.

This study is on the process of social change occurring in Brazil since the beginning of this century. In sketchy form, it shows a generally correct picture and of the process. Brazil has a traditional background in the fullest sense: agrarian, semi-feudal, patriarchal, a stable hierarchy from the elite downward. Until the 1900's local production was restricted to a few agricultural commodities, sugar, cocoa, cotton, rubber, coffee. Almost all manufactured goods were imported from Europe. The small variety of harvests, the unchanging methods of production, and bad internal transportation systems meant for Brazil a gradual loss of the markets for each commodity to foreign competition. The bad transportation also made for a strong regionalism, socially and politically, where the only actual link was the common Portuguese language.