A project seeking to reinterpret Brazil's Prestes Column rebellion of the 1920s Image A map of the Prestes Column (1928) CSMCH member Jake Blanc has been working on a project seeks to reinterpret the Prestes Column rebellion of the 1920s—one of the most mythologised events in Brazilian history. From 1924 to 1927, a group of junior army officers led by Luiz Carlos Prestes marched nearly 25,000 kilometres through Brazil's vast interior; although it failed to overthrow the government, the Prestes Column attained an almost mythic status in Brazilian folklore and political history. While existing scholarship has treated the passage through the interior as a backdrop to the rebellion, Jake focuses on the interior regions themselves, using the Prestes Column as a vector for a new understanding of Brazil’s so-called ‘backlands’. More than just social or subaltern history, and moving past the natural pillars of environmental history, his interior history of the Prestes Column helps reimagine national mythologies from the inside out. This research has been funded by the AHRC Leadership Fellows scheme, the AHRC Research Networking Scheme, and the Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant scheme. Publications Jacob Blanc, Prestes Column and the Myth of Brazil's Interior (Duke University Press, Forthcoming). Jacob Blanc, 'The Bandeirantes of Freedom: The Prestes Column and the Myth of Brazil's Interior,' Hispanic American Historical Review 101.1 (2021), pp. 101-132. This article was published on 2024-06-19
