Over time, Brazil has evolved into a well-defined nation with a strong sense of identity. From the natural beauty of the Amazon River to the exciting resort city of Rio de Janeiro, from soccer champion Pele to classical musician Villa Lobos, Brazil is known as a distinctive, diverse country. It is recognized worldwide for its World Cup soccer team, samba music, dancing, and celebrations of Carnival. This book provides a well-rounded, brief history of Brazil that uniquely focuses on both the politics and culture of the republic. Colin MacLachlan uses a political narrative to frame the evolution of national culture and the formation of national identity. He evaluates Brazilian myths, stereotypes, and icons such as soccer and dancing as part of the historical analysis. Brazil's history is presented from its colonial roots to the present, showing how the country developed its economic and social base, then struggled to modernize and secure a respected world role. Key issues are examined: immigration, slavery and race, territorial expansion, the military, and technology and industrialization. The integration of cultural material enriches the text. It provides handy points for classroom discussion and will help students remember particular aspects Brazil's history. The book includes fascinating side-bars on various aspects of Brazilian culture, including Copacabana Beach and the rain forests. A History of Modern Brazil will inform and entertain students in courses on Brazil and modern Latin America.

Brazil, the largest of the Latin American nations, is fast becoming a potent international economic player as well as a regional power. This English translation of an acclaimed Brazilian anthology provides critical overviews of Brazilian life, history, and culture and insight into Brazil's development over the past century. The distinguished essayists, most of whom are Brazilian, provide expert perspectives on the social, economic, and cultural challenges that face Brazil as it seeks future directions in the age of globalization. All of the contributors connect past, present, and future Brazil. Their analyses converge on the observation that although Brazil has undergone radical changes during the past one hundred years, trenchant legacies of social and economic inequality remain to be addressed in the new century. A foreword by Jerry Davila highlights the volume's contributions for a new, English-reading audience. The contributors are Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira, Cristovam Buarque, Aspasia Camargo, Gilberto Dupas, Celso Furtado, Afranio Garcia, Celso Lafer, Jose Seixas Lourenco, Renato Ortiz, Moacir Palmeira, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Ignacy Sachs, Paulo Singer, Herve Thery, and Jorge Wilheim.

The book analyzes the origins and development of the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement, one of the largest and most innovative current social movements--Provided by publisher.

Activist Biology is the story of a group of biologists at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro who joined the drive to renew the Brazilian nation, claiming as their weapon the voice of their fledgling field. It offers a portrait of science as a creative and transformative pathway. This book will intrigue anyone fascinated by environmental history and Latin American political and social life in the 1920s and 1930s.

This is the first complete economic and social history of Brazil in the modern period in any language. It provides a detailed analysis of the evolution of the Brazilian society and economy from the end of the empire in 1889 to the present day. The authors elucidate the basic trends that have defined modern Brazilian society and economy. In this period Brazil moved from being a mostly rural traditional agriculture society with only light industry and low levels of human capital to a modern literate and industrial nation. It has also transformed itself into one of the world's most important agricultural exporters. How and why this occurred is explained in this important survey.

In Brazil, the confluence of strong global demand for the country's major products, global successes for its major corporations, and steady results from its economic policies is building confidence and even reviving dreams of grandeza—the greatness that has proven elusive in the past. Even as the current economic crisis tempers expectations of the future, the trends identified in this book suggest that Brazil will continue its path toward becoming a leading economic power in the future. Once seen as an economic backwater, Brazil now occupies key niches in energy, agriculture, service industries, and even high technology. Yet Latin America's largest nation still struggles with endemic inequality issues and deep-seated ambivalence toward global economic integration. Scholars and policy practitioners from Brazil, the United States, and Europe recently gathered to investigate the present state and likely future of the Brazilian economy. This important volume is the timely result. In Brazil as an Economic Superpower? international authorities focus on five key topics: agribusiness, energy, trade, social investment, and multinational corporations. Their analyses and expertise provide not only a unique and authoritative picture of the Brazilian economy but also a useful lens through which to view the changing global economy as a whole.

A fabled country with a reputation for danger, romance and intrigue, Brazil has transformed itself in the past decade. This title, written by the go-to journalist on Brazil, intimately portrays a country of contradictions, a country of passion and above all a country of immense power.

This book examines the role of research and the production of knowledge in the information society, with special emphasis on developing areas of the world. It is based on a three day conference that immediately precedes the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in Tunisia (November 2005). Core issues of the conference lie at the intersection of computer science and engineering, information and communication technologies, the world wide web and development. The book contains current and cutting-edge technologies and trends in the utilization of information technology for science and engineering.

This book discusses the commercialization of biofuels and the Brazilian government policies for the promotion of renewable energy program in Brazil, which could be a learning module for several countries for implementing biofuels policy to improve their socioeconomic status and make them energy independent. Researchers in academia and industries, policy makers, and economic analysts will be assisted by important source of information in their ongoing research and future perspectives. This book will benefit graduate and postgraduate students of chemical and biochemical engineering, forestry, microbiology, biochemistry, biotechnology, applied chemistry, environmental science, sustainable energy, and biotech business disciplines by signifying the applied aspects of bioenergy production from various natural sources and their implications. Graduate and postgraduate students as well as postdoctoral researchers will find clear concepts of feedstock analysis, feedstock degradation, microbial fermentation, genetic engineering, renewable energy generation and storage, climate changes, and techno-economic analysis of biofuels production technologies.