BRAZIL- AN INTERPRETATION by GILBERTO FREYRE. Contents include: PREFACE v i. THE EUROPEAN BACKGROUND OF BRAZILIAN HISTORY i ii. FRONTIER AND PLANTATION IN BRAZIL 35 in. BRAZILIAN UNITY AND BRAZILIAN REGIONAL DIVERSITY 66 iv. ETHNIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN MODERN BRAZIL 91 v. BRAZILIAN FOREIGN POLICY AS CONDI TIONED BY BRAZIL'S ETHNIC, CULTURAL, AND GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION 123 vi. THE MODERN LITERATURE OF BRAZIL: ITS RELATION TO BRAZILIAN SOCIAL PROBLEMS 155 INDEX follows page 179. PREFACE: These lectures were delivered on the Patten Foun dation at Indiana University during the autumn of 1944. As in my previous essays and lectures on the social history of Brazil, published in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, the point of view is that of one r who at tempts to suggest a philosophy of Brazilian ethnic and social fusionism not the point of vie e w of rigidly impartial historians or sociologists, if such his torians and sociologists really exist. As a work of interpretation or synthesis,