Milton Santos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Milton Santos (born May 3, 1926 in Brotas de Macaúbas, Bahia, Brazil, died June 24, 2001) was one of the most renowned Brazilian geographers ever, even though he had his first degree in law.

[edit] Biography

His parents — elementary teachers — taught him the alphabet at home. By his eighth year, he had already completed the equivalent of an elementary school education. Milton, descended from slaves on his father's side, was always motivated to study a lot. From his eighth to his tenth year, for instance, when he lived in Alcobaça, he learned French and good manners. Always at home, awaiting the time to enter the gymnasium.

The benefits of his application to the studies of the country can never be denied, but the geographer admitted one frustration: although Alcobaça is a land between the Atlantic Ocean and a river, Milton, always into his books, never learned how to swim. In the same way, he never participated in the skinned ones and he never entered a soccer stadium. Already in Salvador, he financed his classes at school by teaching Geography to the students of what would be the medium teaching now. Then, motivated for a pled uncle, he studied hard. He graduated in Law, but didn't get to practice his profession; he passed a public examination for secondary teacher and he went to teach Geography in Ilhéus. He began, then, a career replete with challenges, in no small way imposed by his condition of blackness. He turned his world, by studying and teaching, onto an impressive path. He studied and he taught in Europe, America and Africa. He made to work in his favor the painful exile that the military dictatorship imposed on him for thirteen years. Milton Santos wrote more than forty books in several languages; his work is a reference for all those who intend to understand in a critical way the current world. He was such an optimistic thinker, before anything else, that he got to distinguish the new from the innovative, concepts that he radically differentiated. A serious and combative geographer, he didn't spare anyone of severe criticism -- politicians, intellectuals, department friends, and even the more faithful students. Gray hair appeared in his last years, but the professor would always appear in long-sleeve shirts and red tie, dressed with the same seriousness with which he worked with knowledge.