Review by Luciana Brito published in the Hispanic American Historical Review. 

I had not been familiar with the work of Manuel Querino. And that is precisely the point. The editor, in assembling this excellent collection of essays and providing her own cogent discussions, succeeds in offering a well-rounded portrait of this remarkable Afro-Brazilian scholar and true pioneer. Querino was versatile and eclectic in his interests. He came from humble beginnings. He worked as a painter and decorator and managed to educate himself through night school. From there he emerged as an activist, newspaper owner, politician, and scholar who wrote extensively on a range of subjects, among others, offering one of the earliest critiques of scientific racism. I was fascinated to read about Querino’s use of portrait photography as well as oral histories as part of his work. Equally fascinating was his interest in folk cuisine; in fact, his focus on this helped to root the notion of a Bahia folk cuisine in popular conception. As such, the portrait of this 19th century Afro-Brazilian in shedding light on his life from a range of angles provides insight into Brazilian history and culture and highlights once again the perniciousness of the myth of a Brazilian ‘racial democracy.’ Highly recommended. - Malve von Hassel