My first thanks go to a person who is no longer here—my first advisor, John Wirth. His kindness, enthusiasm, and support made all the difference in my academic career. John and his wife, Nancy Meem Wirth, kindly extended their friendship to Roberto and I —a treasured friendship for which I will be forever grateful. John was amazing for the breadth of his intellectual curiosity. From our meeting in 1997 until some weeks before his untimely death, John Wirth’s conversations and emails were rich and stimulating, ranging from current Brazilian politics to medieval philosophy. John was a mentor in the fullest sense of the word, and I am very fortunate for having known him.

Some people are lucky enough to have one exceptional advisor. I have had two. Zephyr Frank helped me to overcome the grief of John’s passing and get back to work. He had always been overwhelmingly generous with graduate students—but it was only after he became my advisor that I realized how committed he was to training, supporting and encouraging his students. He never gave up on me—not even when I would perfect advisor-dodging to an art. He read my terrible drafts from one day to another, he edited my grammar disasters without a complaint—even when I once mistakenly gave him a 60 page draft that I had forgotten to spell-check. He met with me during weekends, and during his free time, spending hours at a time working painstakingly through page after page of my drafts—and he did this while he was restructuring the field of Latin American History in our department and writing his first book. I am very, very, proud of being Zephyr Frank’s first advisee to graduate.

My thanks also go to Richard White and Thomas Holloway, the other two members of my dissertation committee. They went well beyond their duty in helping me with this dissertation, reading and copiously commenting on earlier drafts. I have benefited enormously from their exquisite skill in crafting histories—and making them matter. Richard White gave me the cruelest (and most effective) advice for improving my writing: to cut out precisely those passages of which I was most proud. It never ceases to astonish me that one of the best environmental historians in American academia would follow me into the sewage and mangroves of Guanabara Bay. Likewise, Thomas Holloway generously shared with me his vast knowledge of the Brazilian state; he questioned my arguments, corrected huge translation mistakes, suggested new sources, reorganized chapters, and encouraged me to be bold and rigorous in my analyses. Of the immense debt I owe to Tom Holloway, however, what I will remember most is his spirited explanation of what “moonlighting” was and how it did not apply to Vargas’ bureaucratic reform.

I consider my dissertation group to be my second set of advisors. Their work was different, but no less important or precious to me than the work of my official dissertation readers. Shelley Lee, Matt Booker, Carol Pal and Rachel Jean-Baptiste helped me through the grueling process of writing, cutting, editing and rewriting drafts in the last two years. Meanwhile, they taught me much about intellectual networks, African history, race in Asian communities, productivity in San Francisco bay and committed friendship. We wrote application letters together, partied together, and cursed clueless interviewers together—it is a unique bond that will last forever. I would never have made it without them.

I also wish to thank the other members of my academic community at Stanford, particularly Paula Findlen, Carolyn Lougee Chappell, Richard Roberts and Stephen Haber. I am grateful to my graduate student colleagues, including the members of the Bay Area Environmental History Reading Group, the Stanford Environmental History Reading Group, and the Ports in History reading group. I am deeply grateful to my fellow Latin Americanist graduate students, Ian Read, Kari Zimmerman, Aldo Musacchio, Heather Flynn, Martin Valadez, Moramay López-Alonso, Iñigo Garcia-Bryce, Marcelo Bucheli, and Gustavo del Angel, for creating a very supportive environment during a difficult period for our field. The encouragement of other colleagues and friends over the years has been invaluable and they deserve my heartfelt thanks: Rachel St. John, Sara Pritchard, David Holland, Alison Bidwell, Michelle Campos, Shira Robinson, Rod Wilson, Jared Farmer, John Broich and many others. Anthony Maine Jean Baptiste edited one of the later drafts—I salute his bravery—but he shall be absolved from the final product.

Outside the Stanford community, I shared many tears and laughs over this dissertation with Herb Klein, John Opie, and Renata Andrade, and with so many friends and role-models at the American Society for Environmental History: Stuart McCook, Angus Wright, Don Hughes, Don Worster, Jim McNeill, Kate Christen and Mark Stoll. And how could I have finished it without the great suggestions from the H-Environment and H-LATAM electronic lists?

The Brazilian Student Association at Stanford made these years in California very special, very lively and very enriching. In particular, I thank Deborah Schechtman, Kiko Aumond, Leda Beck and Paulo Oliveira, Wanderley and Octavia Liu, Abhijit Sawant and Sonja, Fabiane and Luis Dib, Marlene and Wolf Kandek for all the good laughs and caipirinhas. Maurizio Battaglia and Anna Fernandez are our family away from home, and no words can possibly thank them for all their love and support.

The History Department at Stanford University—and particularly the chair, Carolyn Lougee-Chappell—funded my research for five years and fostered a great, nurturing environmental for young scholars. The Joseph Lieberman Family honored me with the Lieberman Fellowship for promising young professors, and I very much hope to fulfill that promise. The Center for Latin American Studies at Casa Bolivar partially funded my field research and provided a basis for discussion on environmental history of Latin America. The Bechtel International Center made my stay in the United States as smooth as possible, even in moments of great turmoil. To all these institutions and their incredible staff, my deep gratitude.

My debt is not confined to one single country. In Brazil, my friends José Augusto Pádua, José Augusto Drummond, Ana Lucia Vahia de Abreu, Maria Pace Chiavari, Samyra Crespo and Vera Pinheiro helped me with bibliographic suggestions, access to libraries, and priceless phone numbers from their personal networks for interviews. I owe special thanks to many, many people in the Brazilian Navy, in the Arquivo Nacional, and the Arquivo da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro. In particular, the professionals at the Arquivo Público do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, the Fundação Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, the Instituto Histórico-Geográfico Brasileiro, the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística and the Serviço de Documentação da Marinha were extremely cooperative and tireless. Admiral Max Justo Guedes was especially helpful and kind, as was Captain Luiz Moss Goulart, who shared with me his personal archive on Guanabara Bay in the early 1970s. Victor Coelho and Regina Fonseca selflessly allowed me to read their earlier work on Guanabara Bay. Maurício Lobo, Elmo Amador, Leticia Mayr and Marcio “Melão” Santa Rosa discussed my earlier outlines and helped to shape this project. Dora Negreiros and the friends from the Instituto Baía de Guanabara helped me with hundreds of scientific reports and photocopies resulting from their thirty years of love and work for Guanabara Bay. And nobody was more generous than Luiza Krau and her daughter Luiza Cristina Krau de Oliveira, who gave me access to their personal archives, their wonderful house in Penedo and their cherished memories of Lejeune de Oliveira, husband and father.

On a more personal note, my high school friends are still cheering and praying for me, after twenty years. Sérgio Brissac, SJ, Ana Lúcia Vahia de Abreu (again!), Ana Paula de Morais, Marcos Amaral de Moura Estevão, Denise Aboim Sande e Oliveira (godmother, goddaughter and sister-in-law), Hélcio França and Leopoldo Carneiro, with their families and houses and lives, are my safe harbor.

It is a good thing that I am not limited to the 30-second thank-you speech allowed at the Oscars, because I left the most important people to the end. The dissertation was a long process, and much has changed in this time. We lost John Wirth. We lost Paulina Moretto, my much beloved grandmother, a nona, my first role-model. But Marina Oliveira Sedrez, my niece, was also born during this period, and she is a sweet hope for the future. Thank you, Paulo and Denise. My parents Lisette and Altino Sedrez have breathlessly awaited this dissertation, and they deserve full credit for it. So there is also a “thank-you, mom and dad,’ in the best Oscar tradition. I love you so much.

My final thanks go to Roberto Delpiano. I don’t know how to thank him—he is pretty much a co-author for this work. He was my personal graphic designer, worked on all the illustrations, and gave me key suggestions with his no-nonsense sharp tongue. He was also my chief cheerleader, technical advisor, personal cook, insufferable tormentor, unwavering supporter, husband, friend and lover. Before, during and after my dissertation.

I end this long list of acknowledgments not with a “thank you” but with a warm memory. During my field research, I decided to take a boat trip on Guanabara Bay, at least near the mouth of the bay. It is a fairly popular tour for foreign visitors. We went to the Forte São João, at the base of the Sugarloaf, then crossed the mouth of the bay towards Niterói, to the Forte de Santa Cruz. We passed the exquisite beaches of Adão e Eva, Jurujuba, to the Rio-Niterói bridge, and back to western shore, the Ilha Fiscal and Ilha das Cobras, until we returned to the Marina da Glória. What turned this tourist trip into something special was the anonymous boat captain who explained to his ignorant passengers the many legends and tales and stories of Guanabara Bay. Every word told us how much he loved those waters, those beaches, that magnificent landscape, even the towering bridge (which, by the way, is quite ugly). I felt in him a kindred spirit, and he reminded me how much Guanabara Bay matters for so many people. Thus this dissertation is also dedicated to all of those who have lived and loved Guanabara Bay over the centuries.