São Paulo: A Social and Environmental History of the City That Transformed Brazil
By Richard Murdoch Montgomery
Length39h 10m
About this audiobook
São Paulo traces the extraordinary transformation of a modest colonial outpost into the largest metropolis in the Southern Hemisphere. Weaving together social and environmental history, this book explores how rivers, forests, coffee, immigration, and industry reshaped both the land and the lives of its people. From flooded floodplains and buried streams to sprawling factories and restless neighborhoods, it reveals the human and ecological costs of rapid growth — and how the city that transformed Brazil was itself continually remade. A rich portrait of a place where nature and society collided to forge a modern giant.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory, Science and Nature
Length39 hrs 10 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateAug 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Front Matter
2Chapter 1: The Plateau before the City: Geological and Ecological Deep Time
3Chapter 2: Rivers, Forests and Fauna before Urbanisation
4Chapter 3: Indigenous São Paulo: Territory, Society and Knowledge
5Chapter 4: Paths across the Continent: The Plateau within Pre-Colonial Networks
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6Chapter 5: Encounter, Epidemic and the Destruction of an Earlier World, 1500–1554
7Chapter 6: The Foundation of 1554: Mission, Alliance and Colonial Strategy
8Chapter 7: Vila de São Paulo: Government, Faith and Everyday Life
9Chapter 8: Households, Women and the Mameluco Society
10Chapter 9: Captivity and Indigenous Slavery
11Chapter 10: Bandeiras: Expansion, Enslavement and Historical Myth
12Chapter 11: Africans and Afro-Paulista Life in the Colonial Town
13Chapter 12: Animals, Agriculture and the Colonial Environment
14Chapter 13: Gold, Roads and the Interior, 1690–1765
15Chapter 14: The Eighteenth-Century Town: Hierarchy and Daily Negotiation
16Chapter 15: From Sugar to Commerce: The Making of a Provincial Centre
17Chapter 16: Knowledge, Religion and Public Life before Independence
18Chapter 17: São Paulo and the Crisis of the Portuguese Empire, 1808–1822
19Chapter 18: Ipiranga and Independence: Event, Image and National Memory
20Chapter 19: The Provincial Capital after Independence
21Chapter 20: Streets, Houses and Social Boundaries in the Imperial City
22Chapter 21: Urban Slavery: Labour, Family and Resistance
23Chapter 22: Luís Gama, the Caifazes and the Struggle for Freedom
24Chapter 23: Coffee: Plantation Wealth and Urban Transformation
25Chapter 24: Railways and the Conquest of Distance
26Chapter 25: Immigration before Mass Immigration
27Chapter 26: Health, Disease and Death in the Nineteenth-Century City
28Chapter 27: Water, Forest and the First Environmental Crisis
29Chapter 28: Abolition, Republic and the Unfinished Social Revolution, 1888–1889
30Chapter 29: Coffee Oligarchy and the Paulista Republic
31Chapter 30: The Great Immigration and the Remaking of Society
32Chapter 31: Black São Paulo after Abolition
33Chapter 32: Factories, Workers and Industrial Discipline
34Chapter 33: Working-Class Neighbourhoods and Domestic Life
35Chapter 34: Anarchists, Socialists and the General Strike of 1917
36Chapter 35: Modernisation, Sanitation and Social Control
37Chapter 36: Butantan: Snakes, Science and the Brazilian State
38Chapter 37: Electricity, Tramways and the Foreign Utility City
39Chapter 38: Avenida Paulista, Cortiços and the Segregated Metropolis
40Chapter 39: Animals in the Industrial City
41Chapter 40: Modernism, Football and the Invention of Paulista Identity
42Chapter 41: Revolt, Bombardment and Crisis, 1924–1930
43Chapter 42: 1930 and 1932: Defeat, Revolution and Regional Memory
44Chapter 43: Vargas, War, Industrialisation and the Regulated Worker
45Chapter 44: Migration, Self-Building and the Formation of the Periphery
46Chapter 45: The Vertical and Hydraulic Metropolis: Avenues, Automobiles, Universities and Culture
47Chapter 46: Dictatorship, Repression, Resistance and Metropolitan Expansion, 1964–1985
48Chapter 47: Democracy, Deindustrialisation, Finance and the Global City, 1985–2000
49Chapter 48: Peoples of São Paulo: Migration, Faith, Work and Intermarriage
50Chapter 49: Black São Paulo and the White Aspirations of Power
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