Jacob Blanc
Jacob Blanc's research explores the overlap of human rights and social movements across 20th century Latin America, with a particular focus on Brazil.
His first book, Before the Flood: the Itaipu Dam the the Visibility of Rural Brazil () traces the protest movements of farmers, peasants, and indigenous groups in Brazil who were displaced by the Itaipu hydroelectric dam in the 1970s and 1980s. At the nexus of global energy regimes, Cold War militarism, and grassroots social movements, the book’s central concept of visibility tethers the actions of displaced groups to the more endemic issues of repression, resistance, and representation in Latin America.
His second book (forthcoming with ) uses the Prestes Column rebellion in the 1920s to chart a spatial history of development and nationalism in Brazil. Whereas the legend of the column—and all existing scholarship—has focused on the heroic details of the 15,000-mile rebel march across the country, he reinterprets its legacy through the symbolism of Brazil’s interior. The book is titled The Prestes Column: an Interior History of Modern Brazil.
A third book (also forthcoming, with the University of North Carolina Press) is a biography of a former political prisoner and exile. Searching for Memory: Aluízio Palmar and the Shadow of Dictatorship offers more than just a straightforward biography. By placing his nearly forty hours of interviews with Palmar in dialogue with the public speaking, writing, and advocacy that he has conducted since the late 1990s, he explores the methodological implications of using oral histories to study the legacies of authoritarian rule.
Books:
Before the Flood: the Itaipu Dam and the Visibility of Rural Brazil. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), 2019.
The Prestes Column: an Interior History of Modern Brazil, (Duke University Press, March 2024)
Searching for Memory: Aluízio Palmar and the Shadow of Dictatorship in Brazil. (University of North Carolina Press, late 2024)
Big Water: The Making of the Borderlands between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Jacob Blanc and Frederico Freitas (eds). (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press), 2018.
The Interior: Rethinking Brazilian History from the Inside. Jacob Blanc and Frederico Freitas (eds). Under review at the University of Texas Press.
Articles and Chapters:
“Life History and Cultures of Militancy in Latin America’s Cold War,” co-organizer for special issue of Radical Americas, forthcoming, summer 2023.
“A Relationship Forged in Exile: Luís Carlos Prestes and the Brazilian Communist Party,” in Becker et al (eds), Transnational Communism Across the Americas, University of Illinois Press, forthcoming.
“The Bandeirantes of Freedom: the Prestes Column and the Myth of Brazil’s Interior.” Hispanic American Historical Review, 101:1 (Feb. 2021): 101-132.
“Itaipu’s Forgotten History: the 1965 Brazil-Paraguay Border Crisis and the New Geopolitics of the Southern Cone.” The Journal of Latin American Studies, 50:2, (May 2018): 383-409.
“The Last Political Prisoner: Juvêncio Mazzarollo and the Twilight of Brazil’s Dictatorship.” Luso-Brazilian Review, 53:1 (June, 2016): 153-178.