Jens R Hentschke’s revisionist study proves that French Positivism which had played a major role in Brazil’s transition from monarchy to republic did not disappear at the turn of the 20th century. It survived at the country’s southern frontier, in Rio Grande do Sul, where governor Júlio de Castilhos had installed a developmental and educational dictatorship and inspired a whole generation of politicians, among them Getúlio Vargas. When, in 1930, Vargas and many of his fellow gaúchos took over central government, Positivism, in its specific interpretation by Castilhos, re-entered the national stage though it increasingly fused with other ideological currents. Gaúchos had an almost unlimited confidence in the healing powers of good institutions. They did not only want to govern their country but rebuild state and nation. Positivism became a driving force behind what Fernando Henrique Cardoso has called an “authoritarian national-developmentalism.” Some of its long-term effects, such as a frenzy for regulation, political engineering of constitutional law, regulated citizenship, and (neo-)populism, can still be felt today.

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