Laurentino Gomes’s recent best-selling history, 1808: Como uma rainha louca, um príncipe medroso e uma corte corrupta enganaram Napoleão e mudaram a História de Portugal e do Brasil (or How a crazy queen, a frightened prince and a corrupt court tricked Napoleon and changed the history of Portugal and Brazil), describes the flight of Dom João VI of Portugal from Lisbon and his reestablishment of the Portuguese seat of power in Rio de Janeiro in 1808. The history turns on the figure of Dom João—a short, ugly, indecisive man who feared crabs and thunder, hated to bathe and almost never changed his clothes—who found himself in an impossibly difficult historical situation. Dom João’s flight set the stage for the succession of Brazil from Portugal fourteen years later and the government he established in his gigantic colony laid the foundations of contemporary Brazil. Read the rest of this entry »
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Book Review: 1808 by Laurentino Gomes
On September - 22 - 2009
Laurentino Gomes’s recent best-selling history, 1808: Como uma rainha louca, um príncipe medroso e uma corte corrupta enganaram Napoleão e mudaram a História de Portugal e do Brasil (or How a crazy queen, a frightened prince and a corrupt court tricked Napoleon and changed the history of Portugal and Brazil), describes the flight of Dom João VI of Portugal from Lisbon and his reestablishment of the Portuguese seat of power in Rio de Janeiro in 1808. The history turns on the figure of Dom João—a short, ugly, indecisive man who feared crabs and thunder, hated to bathe and almost never changed his clothes—who found himself in an impossibly difficult historical situation. Dom João’s flight set the stage for the succession of Brazil from Portugal fourteen years later and the government he established in his gigantic colony laid the foundations of contemporary Brazil. Read the rest of this entry »
