The onset of modernization in Brazil was not caused by the British. Rather, it was the result of broad trends within which Britishers exercised an important but limited role. Change in Brazil was partly the result of the expansion of the international economy which swept Brazil into its increasingly turbulent course. The spread of new ideas and attitudes which accompanied this economic transformation was also responsible for recasting Brazilian patterns of life. In addition, modernization was the result of factors within Brazil which enabled Brazilians to respond constructively to those foreign stimuli. Thus they were able simultaneously to enjoy the benefits of rapidly increasing exports while controlling a significant portion of the resulting wealth, that is, the capital resources that were needed to develop other sectors of the economy. Similarly, absorption of ideas and attitudes from abroad did not prevent the emergence of an embryonic national consciousness. So internal and external forces combined to launch Brazil into a modernizing trajectory.

Nor were the British responsible if the promise of modern change was unfulfilled by 1914. The process which had then begun has not yet made Brazil over in the image of the modern world because of the obstacles to change presented by the old society. Furthermore, the very process of modernization, like the motion of an aircraft, created waves of opposition which seem to have mounted rapidly in strength when the speed of change increased. At that point where either progress is slowed or the barriers must be noisily broken, Brazil, perhaps because of the qualities of its cultural heritage, has often seemed to hesitate, postponing the inevitable moment of crisis.