Sousa, Otávio Tarqüínio de (1889–1959)

Otávio Tarqüínio de Sousa (b. 7 September 1889; d. 22 December 1959), Brazilian historian. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Sousa graduated from Rio's Faculdade de Ciências Jurídicas e Sociais in 1907. He held high positions in public bureaucracies from the 1910s to 1932, after which he turned earlier interests into a career in literary journalism, publishing, and historiography, achieving his reputation in the latter two. He succeeded Gilberto de Mello Freyre and preceded Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco in the direction (1939–1959) of the Coleção Documentos Brasileiros, the pivotal nationalist series published by José Olympio. He also edited the Revista do Brasil (1938–1943).

Sousa's own works, devoted to the key statesmen of the era from 1822 to 1850, suggest the preoccupation with the nation-state common to the period. During his Coleção stewardship over ninety volumes were published by such figures as Freyre, Jõao Camilo de Oliveira Torres, Cassiano Ricardo, Luís Viana Filho, Nelson Werneck Sodré, Luís da Câmara Cascudo, Afonso de E. Taunay, Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, and Sérgio Buarque de Holanda. Sousa's role in the nationalist milieu was central to the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Brazilian studies from the 1930s through the 1950s.

See alsoBrazil: Since 1889; Freyre, Gilberto (de Mello); Melo Franco, Afonso Arinos de; Sodré, Nelson Werneck.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Otávio Tarqüínio De Sousa's works include Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcellos e seu tempo (1933), Evaristo da Veiga (1939), História de dois golpes de estado (1939), Diogo Antônio Feijó (1942), José Bonifacio, 1763–1838 (1945), A vida de D. Pedro I, 3 vols. (1952), and História dos fundadores do império do Brasil, 10 vols. (1957–1958). Another helpful source is José Honório Rodrigues, "Otávio Tarqüínio de Sousa," in Hispanic American Historical Review 40, no. 3 (August 1960): 431-434.

Additional Bibliography

Iglésias, Francisco. Historiadores do Brasil: Capítulos de historiografia brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 2000.

                                       Jeffrey D. Needell