Negacionismo e eurocentrismo como desafios ao ensino de história: reflexões críticas a partir do livro Brasil: A última cruzada (2022)

Abstract

Scientific denialism has become one of the major contemporary challenges to democracies, closely intertwined with an equally pressing issue: historical denialism. This article examines that relationship, highlighting how the Brazilian case acquires specific features rooted in the tradition of silencing marginalized groups by elites inheriting colonial legacies. To this end, we analyze the book Brasil: a última cruzada (2022), produced by the company Brasil Paralelo, in which discursive strategies of denialism are identified. The narrative downplays the violence of colonization and slavery, displaces historical responsibilities, and exalts an alleged harmony between races and political elites, in contrast to the critique advanced by academic historiography. This rhetorical operation combines Eurocentrism and denialism, converting the past into the foundation of a political-cultural project marked by attacks on scientific production and the teaching of History. The article concludes by stressing the urgency of confronting this phenomenon in the classroom through strategies that contrast denialism and academic historiography, clarify the methods of historical research, and foster students’ intellectual autonomy — an indispensable condition for preserving a democratic and plural society.