Abstract

Within the formatting of the modern experience, a violent eurocentric civilizing ideology with universalizing purposes was created, even though it is the result of the interaction and circulation of ideas between different cultures, as Elias Palti e Julio Ramos said. Of the varials important categories and concepts in these processes, progress has become one of the most central. We will approach some possibilities of this category through the work of Koselleck and, afterwards, how it was mobilized by Paulo Prado in the beginning of the 20th century. Our hypothesis is that Prado understands that making progress depends on adequate articulations with the Brazilian colonial past.

Keywords:
Progress; History Writing; Intellectual History