The article examines how the discursive, social, and political processes that nationalized the Amazon gained firm footing during Brazil's First Republic. It is argued that Euclides da Cunha's texts on the Amazon see the forest and narrate its story in a way that differs from the travel accounts of nineteenth-century naturalists, above all foreign ones. Drawing inspiration from Latin American cultural studies, the article reinforces the argument that there is a historical discontinuity between the romantic foreign travel literature of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth-century writings of Euclides da Cunha.
cultural studies; Euclides da Cunha (1866-1909); Amazon; Brazil