Visions of the Past: A commentary on the Social Sciences in Brazil

Abstract

The author observes and analyzes some characteristics of the
internal constitution of the Social Sciences while reconstructing
its disciplinary and thematic profile, through which institucional
and socio-historical conditions which penetrate the process of the
elaboration of knowledge can also be identified. Taking the book
as main empirical instrument and focusing the time span between
1945 and 1964 (the period of consolidation of the Social Sciences
in Brazil), the author shows the importance given to the past and
its reconstruction as well as to the building of the nation and
its modernization. The conclusion is that, despite differences
among the Social Sciences, the central themes and preoccupations
during the period were essentially the same.