Remembering Tom Skidmore (1932–2016)

• Published in: Luso-Brazilian review 2016-12, Vol.53 (2), p.1-9
• Main Authors: Kittleson, Roger, Wolfe, Joel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic disciplines; American history; Careers; Deaths; Historians; Intellectuals; Scholars
• ISSN: 0024-7413; 1548-9957
• DOI: 10.3368/lbr.53.2.1

Thomas Elliot Skidmore had, by his own estimation, a carreira feliz. This was what he told historian José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy in a 1988 interview. With characteristic precision, Tom applied the dual meanings of feliz here— both “happy” and “fortunate.” He had, in other words, found satisfaction in taking advantage of the opportunities open to him to address major themes of Brazilian history and to become an increasingly astute and influential critic of political, economic, and social developments in Brazil. Well before 1988 Tom had become the iconic Brazilianist, the most famous foreign scholar of Brazil. His pithy and often provocative observations on current events as well as the country’s past won him renown among many Brazilians, even if it also irked others, including officials of the dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 through 1985. More than anything else, however, it was his pioneering and ambitious scholarship and exemplary work in building a field that earned him his place of influence. His vast body of historical writings, his decades of teaching undergraduates and training graduate students, and his efforts to consolidate centers of Brazilian studies first at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and then at Brown University all made him a pillar of Brazilian and Latin American history. That he did all this with the utmost seriousness of purpose but also a sly and irreverent sense of humor and a desire to help the careers of young scholars—even those who were not his students—meant that he was also a beloved figure.