Sociology of a changing book

Irving Horowitz and the project Revolution in Brazil

Abstract

Books play a central role in the history of sociology, but: how may they be understood as material scientific objects? This article takes a case study centered on the book project Revolution in Brazil (1964) by Irving Horowitz, originally published by E.P. Dutton & Co. and translated by Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1966. It examines the productive process of this work, shaped by the dialogues established between Horowitz and his Latin American peers, and by the translation and circulation of the book. It argues that an apparently single text is in fact two different works, due to the differing expectations of the audiences, the strategies of authors and editors, and the effects produced by intellectual exchanges, which took place in a context of structural asymmetry of material and symbolic resources.