An Interpretation of the History of Brazilian Education: The Bibliographic Manual of Brazilian Studies (1949)

ABSTRACT This article examines the conception of the history of education presented in the Manual Bibliográfico de Estudos Brasileiros (1949), a work organized by Rubens Borba de Moraes and William Berrien, aimed at providing an introductory guide to national knowledge and culture. The analysis focuses on the entry “Education,” written by Raul Briquet and Lourenço Filho, whose interpretations of Brazil’s educational trajectory reflect the intellectual and institutional debates of the period. Briquet emphasizes the role of the Jesuits in colonial education and criticizes the metropolis’s negligence, while Lourenço Filho, aligned with the educational reforms of the Estado Novo, highlights the importance of the bureaucratic-administrative organization of education in the country’s modernization. By situating the Manual within the context of the renewal of the human sciences in Brazil and the consolidation of an interpretative approach to the history of education, this study seeks to contribute to the understanding of knowledge production in education, the movements of educational historiography, and the editorial and institutional dynamics of the 1940s.