First published Dec 2014
Last Updated 11 Dec 2023
Capoeira Reading List
Below is a list of Capoeira books & papers I have read. There are 100s of books about Capoeira out there. Here’s a comprehensive list by Dr. Sara Delamont (Cardiff University).
* Capoeira Angola – Mestre Pastinha (PDF)
* A Herança de Mestre Pastinha PDF
* The Heritage of Pastinha (English) PDF
* Mestre Pastinha Manuscritos 1
* Mestre Pastinha Manuscritos 2
* A Herança de Mestre Bimba PDF
* The Heritage of Bimba (English) PDF
* A alegria da Capoeira PDF – Canjiquinha
* The Joy of Capoeira (English) PDF – Canjiquinha
* Capoeira A Brazilian Art Form – Bira de Almeida (Mestre Acordeon) (Blue Snake Books – 1986)
* The Little Capoeira Book – Nestor Capoeira (Blue Snake Books – 1995)
* Capoeira: Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game – Nestor Capoeira. I read this after ‘The Little Capoeira Book’. There’s a third book written by him as part of the trilogy but I can’t find it at an affordable price…
* A negregada instituição – Os Capoeiras no Rio de Janeiro 1850-1890 – Carlos Eugenio Libano Soares.
* Capoeira and Candomble – Floyd Merrell (Markus Wiener Publisher – 2005)
* Mysticism in Capoeira – amongst other things, explains the meaning of various capoeira songs. I don’t know who wrote this originally, but it was translated to English by Shayna McHugh, 2005
* A Roda do mundo Post-graduate social anthropology paper – Celso de Brito (2010)
* Capoeira, a philosophy of the body extract by Camille Marc Dumoulié
* Nagé, o homen que lutou Capoeira até morrer – Frede Abreu (Barabô Editora – 2017)
Beautiful book about Nagé’s life and death and Capoeira history. I managed to buy it from a Capoeira Shop, at an eye watering price of £70. It costs even more now (June 2020)!!!
* É preta Kalungá – A Capoeira Angola como Prática da Política entre os Angoleiros Baianos – Anos 80-90 – Rosangêla Costa Araújo (Mestra Janja) – (Fundação Gregório de Mattos – 2015)
* Vivências e fundamentos de um mestre de capoeira – Mestre Brasilia (Editora Matrix – 2008)
* Historia, Cantoria e versos – Mestre Roxinho (Ecamar – 2011)
* As Asas do Mestre – Mestre Ousado – Biography of one of the pioneers of Capoeira in London. (Luiz Renato Vieira UNB – 2011)
* Capoeira: The Essential Guide to Mastering the Art – Ponciano Almeida
* Capoeira Conditioning – How to build strength, agility and cardiovascular fitness using capoeira movements – Gerard Taylor (Blue Snake Books – 2005)
* The Capoeira Guidebook: Investigations into the Culture, History, and Philosophy of the Afro-Brazilian Art, Evan Wedsworth – a concise guide in English that gives a good overview of Capoeira and its history. (Self published – 2016).
* Tributo ás Mestras – Mestre Maxwell (Ile Foundation – 2019)
=========================================================================
External resources
* Dr. Sara Delamont’s team Capoeira research resouces
* Digital archive in Portuguese: Capoeira Nomade Acervo Digital
* Open Capoeira Blog Book Collection
* Not a book, but a must read! CapoeiraGens – Capoeira Genealogy tree of well known mestres. Mestre’s Poncianinho’s
Oct ’24 – the images are no longer showing for this site… Seems to be broken