In his classic work Raízes do Brasil (Roots of Brazil), historian Sérgio Buarque de Holanda writes
that the Brazilian experience is unique: we constitute a unique, vast
and effective effort to transplant European culture in a tropical
and sub-tropical region. As a result of our process of civilization,
our culture has always valued foreigners, and our art-both tropicalist
and anthropophagic-habitually values and devours everything that comes
from abroad, recycling it and returning it to the circuit with our
own distinctive timber.