Leslie Bethell

Leslie Bethell is Emeritus Professor of Latin American History, University of London; Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford; Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C; and Visiting Professor, Brazil Institute, King’s College London.

He is a former Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London (1987-92) and founding Director of the Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford (1997-2007).

He has been Visiting Professor/Visiting Scholar at a number of Brazilian and US universities and research institutions; Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ) (1979), University of California, San Diego (1986),  University of Chicago (1992-3), Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C. (1987, 1996-7, 2008-9, 2010 and 2011), Centro de Pesquisa e Documentação da História Contemporânea do Brasil (CPDOC), Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro (2008-12) and Instituto de Relações Internacionais, Universidade de São Paulo (2012).

In 2011 he founded the Daniel Cosío Villegas Chair of Latin American History in the Instituto Mercosul de Estudos Avançados, Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana, Foz de Iguacú, Brazil.

Professor Bethell's research has been principally in the field of nineteenth and twentieth-century Latin American – and especially Brazilian – political, social and cultural history. In addition to some fifty book chapters and journal articles, his publications include The abolition of the Brazilian slave trade (Cambridge, 1970; Port. trans. 1976; 2nd Port. trans., 2002); (editor, with Ian Roxborough) Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War (Cambridge, 1992; Port. trans. 1996); The Paraguayan War (1864-1870) (London, 1996); (editor) Brasil: fardo do passado, promessa do futuro. Dez ensaios sobre politica e sociedade brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 2002); Brazil by British and Irish authors (Oxford, 2003); (editor, with José Murilo de Carvalho) Joaquim Nabuco e os abolicionistas britânicos (Rio de Janeiro: Academia Brasileira de Letras and Topbooks, 2008; Eng. trans., 2009); Charles Landseer. Desenhos e Aquarelas de Portugal e do Brasil, 1825-1826 (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Moreira Salles, 2010); (editor), Joaquim Nabuco, My Formative Years [first English translation of Minha formação (1900)] (Oxford and Rio de Janeiro, 2012); (editor, with José Murilo de Carvalho and Cícero Sandroni), Joaquim Nabuco: correspondente internacional 1882-1891 3 volumes (Rio de Janeiro, 2013, forthcoming);

He is Editor of the Cambridge History of Latin America (12 volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1984-2008), which is also being published in Spanish (Editorial Crítica, Barcelona), Portuguese (Editora da Universidade de São Paulo) and Chinese (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing), and the author or co-author of chapters on the Independence of Brazil and Brazil 1822-1850 in CHLA vol. III Latin America, from Independence to c. 1870 (1985) and four chapters on the politics of Brazil 1930-2002 in CHLA vol. IX Brazil since 1930 (2008).

He serves on the International Advisory Councils of a number of British, US and Brazilian institutions.

Professor Bethell has been a sócio correspondente of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro since 1992. In 2004 he was elected a member of the Academia Brasileira de Ciências. In 2010 he was elected a sócio (one of twenty foreign members) of the Academia Brasileira de Letras (cadeira 16).

Professor Bethell has been awarded the Ordem Nacional do Cruzeiro do Sul by the Brazilian government (Comendador in 1994, Grande Oficial in 1998). In 2010 he received the Ordem Nacional do Mérito Científico (Comendador).

Since his retirement from the University of Oxford in 2007 he has lived in Rio de Janeiro.