This essay aims to analyze both Nation and Nationalism concepts according to the viewpoint of brazilian experience, from colonial roots to our times, from national state’s birth to the settlement of the Nation and national self-stee. The main historical landmarks happen with few preliminary traumas and are "conservative-zed". Productive forces develop dynamically; demographic expansion and territory occupation continue as society changes and new groups emerge; however, large population segments keep excluded from the welfare economic development should provide. Natives' self-perception is rather cyclothymical. Both popular and elite’s culture provide the keys to understand the mutations of national thinking about Brazil, as well as many other features that develop from those two concepts.
Brasil; Nationalism; Economy; History; Culture
