O presente artigo trata da “descoberta” do minério de ferro brasileiro a partir de duas perspectivas. A primeira analisa a crescente ênfase das geociências em sua aplicação prática e em sua globalidade desde a segunda metade do século XIX. Enquanto no Brasil a geologia econômica foi integrada passo a passo às instituições do Estado, no nível global ela viveu momento de triunfo com o 11o Congresso Geológico Internacional, em 1910. A segunda trata de uma rede social específica com papel decisivo na corrida pelo minério de ferro brasileiro: experts transnacionais movimentandose entre as lógicas do mercado e as da academia. O artigo mostra a importância das negociações locais na incorporação do subsolo mineiro ao espaço global de mineração.

Recebido: 18 fev. 2018 | Revisto pelo autor: 9 abr. 2018 | Aceito: 12 abr. 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0104-87752018000200007 Varia Historia, Belo Horizonte, vol. 34, n. 65, p. 445-474, mai/ago 2018 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. Acelerações em escala regionalA transformação do vale do Rio Doce, ca. 1880Doce, ca. -1980 Accelerations on a Regional Scale Abstract The article presents a longue durée perspective on the Doce river valley and analyzes acceleration processes on a scale of human experience and agency. It focuses on four moments which are representative of perceptions and appropriations of the region in the context of global changes in resource demand and transport technologies. The concept of "imaginary landscapes" accounts for the interrelation between spatial imagination and material transformation. Represented as a frontier of civilization in the 1880s, around 1910 the valley became associated with Brazil's future as an industrial nation and supplier of iron ore. The spatial ideologies of territorial development and those that saw the region as a transport corridor were in conflict, which became particularly visible in the wake of the Second World War and the foundation of the Companhia Vale do Rio Doce. During the 1970s, slurry pipelines extended the territorial reach of the mining frontier. This acceleration is one historical dimension of the 2015 Mariana dam disaster.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

The article discusses the relationship between global history and Brazilian history and suggests an agenda for future research. It argues that global history scholars could profit from Brazil's great scholarly tradition, which conceptualises key topics of global history such as global encounters and cultural identities, power asymmetries and spatial orders. Scholars interested in Brazilian history, on the other hand, will find a set of approaches and questions from a global history perspective helpful for research on central fields of Brazil historiography such as the coffee economy, scientific racism, the Cold War and the Amazon.

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