WilliamGAFrost

Translated version published by Penguin in 2016

This is a brutally honest portrayal of corruption in Brazil; an engrossing read in which we have to give credit to the author for his pull no punches approach, as he lays bare some of the most extreme examples of wanton police violence and brazen political wrongdoing.  

In many ways this book is an unofficial autobiography, as the author shares glimpses into his personal life like going to his first football match with his father or hosting a party for thirteen Swedish friends. These insights give us a view into the author’s life and makes his perspective warmer and easier to relate to. But it also creates a historical and political backdrop, contextualising key events that took place before, during and after the military dictatorship of 1964-1985. What’s more, the events take place in Rio de Janeiro the city that had been Brazil’s capital until 1960, just four years before the coup d’état, that would usher in the dictatorship. 

You have to admire the sheer courage of Soares to put into words some outrageous examples of abuses of power that he witnessed first-hand as a politician at local and national level. What is revealing is just the staggering depth of the problems that exist in Rio and Brazil more broadly; engrained problems that have existed for generations that have no easy solutions. And whilst Soares himself tries bravely to confront these issues head on (and this respect he acts as a whistle blower) he is more often than not met with a brick wall of defiance, warning him not to overstep the mark. His optimism and ambition to change things for the better in his country are frequently met with cynicism and aggression urging him not to challenge the status quo. 

One of the most harrowing and hard to read episodes describes the systematic torture of the 21 year old student Dulce Pandolfi at the hands of government operatives during the military dictatorship. The author spares us no details as he lays bare the horrors of state authorised persecution of its own citizens, in an atmosphere where freedom of speech had been done away with and censorship of the press meant that crimes of that nature went unreported.

“When the Brazilian dictatorship was in full stride, between 1969 and 1974, there was no need to hurry. The torturers had all the time in the world to sink the blade of terror into their victims’ flesh.” (p.47) 

The physical and psychological abuse that the victims were subjected to was truly horrendous and the author’s attention to detail demonstrates his desire for as much light as possible to be shed on this darkest of episodes in Brazilian history. 

Another enlightening section describes the time the author is called into a Rio favela, when he was serving as a local politician, in an attempt to calm an impending riot. He is undertaking this Herculean task when a police helicopter flies overhead to disperse the crowd and in the process displaying behaviour deliberately intended to provoke and intimidate the masses in a shameful abuse of power. Soares’ exasperation and rage are clear to see as he witnesses acts of corruption on a shocking scale. 

“The machine [helicopter] and its addendum – the laughing gunman acting out an aerial massacre – are designed to intimidate. Especially when they ascend and descend above the heads of the crowd, the roar of blades drowning out the other sounds.” (p.91)

The penultimate chapter discusses the June 2013 protests (which took place all over Brazil) and describes how the author unwittingly got caught up in the Rio march. Whilst the protests were originally about the rise in the price of transport fares, they soon turned into something much more generic in nature and were organised largely online via social media. Whilst there were a myriad of reasons why people came out onto the streets, the exorbitant amounts of money spent on major sporting events like the Football World Cup and the summer Olympics was a recurrent theme. But the incohesive and inhomogeneous nature of these manifestations was perhaps their most striking element. The author makes the following observation whilst still on the march itself.

“I opened the recorder app on my cell phone and said the following: anyone who tries to capture the demonstrations of 20 June 2013 in a nutshell risks wasting what was perhaps most essential to it: its dispersiveness.” (p.253)  

They were a spontaneous outpouring of grievances that had no greater message per se. It was a cry of discontent at large from the bowels of society, releasing years of pent up frustration and anger. At its peak the author estimated that there were about one million people thronging down the President Vargas Avenue in central Rio venting their discontent about the state and its modus operandi.

A connection is made to a similar rally that took place some thirty years earlier that the author attended in almost exactly the same part of the city in April 1984 showing that Rio had remained an important place of political manifestation throughout this time despite losing its status as capital. 

“Rio de Janeiro, though stripped of its capital status in 1960, continued to figure as the ultimate symbol of the nation.”(p.227)

However the 1984 protests had a clear message with clear goals, namely the end of the dictatorship and the immediate reinstatement of democracy. The impact the dictatorship had on people was also laid bare, especially on young people at the time. 

 “On 10 April 1984 I was exhausted. I’d had as much as I could take of the authoritarian regime. The dictatorship had desiccated two thirds of my life. From 1964 to 1984, all we had had was twenty years of fear and censorship.” (p. 242) 

With an almost depressingly level of predictability the 2013 protests ended in scenes of indiscriminate police violence as they attempted to break up the crowd. Rubber bullets were fired and tear gas incendiaries were launched at participants who were trying to get home, as people were hounded across the city in an attempt to reach safety. In an unfathomable paradox the police ended up provoking chaos and destruction rather than quelling it. 

Soares paints a brutal picture of his home city; brutal in its honesty and bravely to recount some of the appalling things he has been witness to. The account is made more sincere as it is a highly personal one and the authors’ directness makes for compelling reading. His talent for writing wonderfully brings to life scenes and snapshots from Brazil’s most famous city; at times you can almost feel the heat of the carioca summer or smell the grilled meat on the barbecue in the back yard, such it the vitality of his prose. Credit should also be given to Anthony Doyle for an illuminating translation from the original Portuguese. 

Soares brilliantly shares his myriad of emotions that are engendered through his everyday life in Brazilian society: love, joy, surprise, desperation, incredulity, despair. The rollercoaster ride is extreme and the jolts and shocks are uncomfortable. But this only adds to the depth and breadth of this fascinating book which is characterised by an unflinching level of honesty in the face of significant opposition. In putting his head above the parapet Soares confronts some of the most challenging issues faced by Brazilian society and his meticulous attention to detail means that the horrors of the past cannot be forgotten. 

This book would appeal to readers who would like to know more about the recent history of Brazil’s most iconic city and also that of Brazil as a whole. The internal issues highlighted by Soares are still playing out in Brazilian society today and understanding them can help us contextualise the challenges and machinations of this deeply complex country.

In Fordlandia Greg Grandin discusses the creation, from scratch, of a town on the banks of the Tapajós River, in the Brazilian Rainforest, by one of the world’s most famous car makers, Henry Ford. The idea behind the ambitious project was to source locally grown rubber for manufacturing purposes, to compete with British and French companies who had the monopoly on the world market with products from their former colonies. 

The task proved to be a complicated and fraught journey that had many setbacks and false starts. The Ford Motor Company tried to replicate working methods and styles from their Headquarters in Michigan directly to the state of Pará in northern Brazil, in the heart of the Amazon jungle. The stark differences in climate, work ethic, language and lifestyle soon came to the fore and the Americans realised just what a gargantuan challenge lay ahead of them. But Fordlandia (and it’s later downstream sister town Belterra) soon became more than a rubber plantation, indeed it became an extension of American life and values of the 1930’s with schools, shops and a dance hall all built on the US model. Prohibition was even enforced for a time raising difficult questions about the jurisdiction of the land (which Ford had bought in 1927 but due to a lack of research by his lawyers, he could have got for free from the Brazilian government). 

The working styles and culture inevitably encountered problems as the idealistic American workers grappled with Brazilian heat, humidity, tropical diseases, bureaucracy, corruption as well as their own shortcomings underlined by an almost total lack of research from the outset relating to the production of rubber in the Amazon. The methods of blind enthusiasm that had proved so successful in the US proved equally as unsuccessful in Brazil. When describing the people aboard a boat heading to set up the new town, Grandin questions the suitability of the staff selected. 

“The Ormoc had plenty of science, brains, and money on board. What it didn’t have was a horticulturalist, agronomist, botanist, microbiologist, entomologist, or any other person on board who might know something about jungle rubber and its enemies.” (p.128) 

Nor did the crew of this boat exercise due diligence in terms of researching the local geography and topography of the river it was navigating. 

“No one told Sorensen that an underwater rock ledge cut across the Tapajós fifty miles downriver from where they planned to establish the plantation, making it impossible for ships the size of the Ormoc to reach the site during the dry season, when the water was low.” (p.125) 

The town soon turned into a financial black hole and in the end never made a profit, but this didn’t stop Ford continuing on his mission of exporting his way of life to a part of the world that was woefully unprepared to receive it. The idea of consumer capitalism to people living in one of the most rural and undeveloped parts of the world at that time was a hard sell. 

Ultimately what did for the project was the inability of their farmers and planters to contain a pestilence know as South American Leaf Blight (or mal-das-folhas in Portuguese) which ravaged successive crops year after year. This was down to a lack of understanding of how the sophisticated and complex jungle ecosystem worked. 

This book was published by Picador in 2009, and written by Greg Grandin who is a professor of history at Yale University. It is an excellent read and demonstrates a high level of research, which is manifested in the thorough degree of detail that is provided on the topics considered. The historian’s writing style is clear and coherent, and whilst some prior knowledge of Brazilian and American 20^th century history would be helpful to the reader, Grandin’s in depth explanations mean that even complete newcomers to the subject can be guided through the events. The quality of this book is also demonstrated by the breadth of the themes that it covers meaning that it has a broad appeal. These themes include industrialization, the motor industry, the Great Depression and Wall Street Crash, the rise of Unionism, the New Deal and the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt in the US and Getulio Vargas in Brazil. 

Historians, economists and political scientists would find this book especially appealing, as well as students of Brazilian and American 20^th century history. But this really is a book for everyone such are the variety of the issues that are dealt with and the enjoyable pace at which the story is told. 

One of the most intriguing aspects of this book is the portrayal of Henry Ford himself as such a complex and talented individual who also had extremely contradictory personality traits that ranged from benevolence to sadism, from traditionalist to modernist. Undoubtedly one of the greatest engineers and businessmen of all time, the author exposes the inconsistencies of the magnate through his, at times, unpredictable decision making process. 

The subtitle of this book is “The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s forgotten Jungle City.” And indeed this is a forgotten chapter in history. When I asked Brazilian friends about Fordlandia, nearly all said that they had never heard of the place, let alone know the history that goes with it. This adds to the book’s weight as shining a light on a topic that is rarely discussed. 

The epilogue is particularly engaging as it concentrates on the impact that the creation of Fordlandia had on the Amazon and how that impact can be felt today. These broadly fall into two categories; deforestation and globalisation (which in this case are clearly linked). Ford’s town was responsible for the clearing of countless hectares of Amazon Rainforest to build the settlement and its rubber plant, a process that has accelerated at an alarming rate until the present day. The author highlights how the Amazon region has become an extremely violent and dangerous place due to the conflict between the illegal logging trade and the attempts at containing it. Readers also learn about the shocking number of ecological activists who have been murdered in the north of Brazil in recent decades including a high profile case in which an American nun was shot dead. 

“In 2005 in eastern Pará, gunmen hired by loggers killed Sister Dorothy Stang, a Maryknoll nun from the United States who had been working with local rural communities to oppose illicit logging.” (p.363) 

The trajectory of neoliberal economics is also considered in the epilogue. Henry Ford became famous for his high salaries paid to factory workers. If we compare that with the situation now where workers’ salaries are constantly being driven down in the quest for higher profit margins, it is shocking to see how much things have changed.

“Instead of Ford’s virtuous circuit of high wages and decent benefits generating expanding markets, a vicious one now rules: profits are derived not from well paid workers affluent enough to buy what they have made but from driving prices as low as they can go; this in turn renders good pay and humane benefits not only unnecessary for keeping the economy going but impossible to maintain, since the best, and at times only, place to cut production costs it labor.” (p.359) 

Grandin also mentions the issue of modern slavery which, unfortunately, is still a system that continues to this day in the Amazon. 

The epilogue is in many ways the part of the story that connects Henry Ford’s venture to the present day realities of pressing topics in the 21^st century, namely global warming, neoliberal economics, the moral responsibility of business and the role business plays in international relations. Many of these issues are never far away from news headlines today. It is this relevance to current affairs that makes Grandin’s book such an interesting and timely piece of writing as a historical context is provided to many of the challenges that we are facing now. 

This book exceeded all expectations and this is due to the in depth research and clarity of writing style that the author demonstrates. This is a must read for people interested in early 20^th century history, Brazil – USA relations and the Amazon Rainforest. But this book will also appeal to curious people looking to broaden their knowledge and learn about an unusual series of events that took place on the banks of the Tapajós River. 

I was four days into a six week trip around South America; it was a Saturday evening in early February and I was in a bar in Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro with some Spanish friends. Due to the time of year the carnival season had started and the streets were teeming with a mix of tourists and locals getting ready for a night of partying. The atmosphere was balmy but also frenetic as a sense of momentum was beginning to build; the informal street parties (known as blocos in Portuguese) were starting up. From afar you could hear the high pitch screeching of the whistles and the rumbling of the battery groups floating through the streets. You could hardly miss the “blocos”, they are made up of about a hundred people mostly wearing the colours of their samba school, but with an array of other outfits, wigs and fancy dress in the mix. 

As the crowd got closer, the music got louder and the atmosphere became more electric, I wanted to make a video of this animated scene, so I got out my phone, raised it above my head to get a better view and pressed record. I probably only filmed for about 15 seconds or so, but it was obviously long enough to mark me out as the most naïve person on that street at that time. I went back to talking to my friends.

Some time later I went into the bar, and when I came back the street was thronging with revellers in full swing; the crowds were singing and dancing and carnival had filled the street. As I wandered back towards my friends I was suddenly surrounded by a group of three men and a woman. I wasn’t that alarmed initially as the notion of personal space is completely different to what it is in Europe; a complete stranger can walk up to you in the street and stand right next to you whilst asking you a question, something that is hard to deal with the first time you go to South America. With this in mind I tried to squeeze past the group, but it soon dawned on me what was going on. Two of them barged right up against me as I walked past and as an automatic reaction I raised my arms up to try and move them away from me. With my arms raised my shorts pockets were left unprotected and before I knew it there was a hand rummaging around in my pocket. 

“My phone! My phone! Hey stop… Stop!” 

I actually saw the guy who had robbed me disappear in to the crowd; he was huge at about 6,4” tall.  He didn’t even run off, he just slid away into the multitude. His physical presence alone put me off going after him and with the violent crime levels what they are in Rio, I made an instinctive decision not to try and recuperate my phone from the thief. 

When I tried to remonstrate with the other members of the group, they just shouted, “What? What?”, playing dumb as if they didn’t have a clue what was going on. It was all done in less than a minute. And by the time I’d realised what was going on, it was over. I’d been mugged, or pickpocketed, take your pick. 

I told the bar manager what had happened and asked him to call the police; he more or less laughed in my face. “There’s no point, the police won’t be able to get your phone back! The thieves will be in the favela by now, you’ll just spend the whole evening at the police station filling in forms.” I suddenly felt a very long way from home. Reluctantly I conceded that he was right and I re-joined my friends. The silver lining was that I didn’t have my wallet stolen which was in the other pocket. It was the first time I’d been mugged so I was shocked at what had happened. They soon told me stories about how they had had similar experiences in other places like Barcelona,  New York and Paris. Luckily security on modern day smartphones is good so I didn’t have any worries about my phone actually being used. I’m sure it would just be wiped clean as soon as possible. And the most things would be saved on the cloud, except for photos taken in the previous 24 hours. 

It’s funny as I’d been warned a thousand times by Brazilians and non-Brazilian friends alike about being careful with my possessions, especially in Rio. This was my fourth time in Brazil and I’d never had a problem with safety or security before. And in some respects I naively thought that it would never happen to me, but it did; the bubble had burst. Maybe I had been lucky in the past, on this occasion I was unlucky. 

Once I got back to the hotel, I went straight onto my laptop to let people know what had happened. As I have an Apple laptop I could send messages to others with Apple devices, and I fired off some emails. I then set about trying to block my phone; I logged on to the EE website, and had a fruitless text message conversation with a robot. 

“Was this conversation helpful?”

“No.” 

After a while I found out that the only way of blocking the usage of my phone was to call the helpline. But I’ve had my phone stolen… 

I tried calling from the hotel reception but to no avail. I then asked to borrow a woman’s phone who I met in the reception and again the number didn’t work. I was now in a panic. In the end I managed to message my mum who was in New Zealand, and she managed from there to call EE and block my phone. What a rigmarole… I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a way of blocking the thing online. 

So that was it, I was phoneless. And for the first time in as long as I can remember I went to bed without a handset next to me. 

The automatic reaction of people was; “Why don’t you just get another one?”

This thought had obviously crossed my own mind but the prices of electronic goods in Brazil are much higher in the UK due to import taxes. There is also no roaming in South America so I’d have to buy a new sim card in every town that I visited. But more to the point I wouldn’t have any of my numbers or contacts or even my British number, so how would I be able to get in touch with family and friends? I also figured that the day I bought a phone I would become a target once again for muggers (a bit cynical maybe). 

After some reflection I decided to plough ahead with my life without a phone. I knew it was going to be slightly odd, but I thought how hard could it be? My parents’ generation never had mobiles when they went travelling. I also liked the idea of having a challenge, as if being alone in a country with the highest homicide level in the world wasn’t enough of a challenge… 

Whilst still in Rio things actually weren’t that hard as you can normally find who you are looking for on the beach at Copacabana or Ipanema. But soon the sheen wore off and I was beginning to realise what an undertaking it would be.

 Having emailed my friends the day I was mugged the emails came back in drips and drabs over a two week period. And then there were the friends who replied three weeks later, and there was also a group who mysteriously never replied. A lot of the time these were people who had changed their email address since I last emailed them, and in some cases that was a long time. Facetime on my laptop was a lifesaver but this only worked for those who use Apple devices and if you want to have a call you have to arrange a time and be ready, sitting at your laptop. This can be tricky if you’re abroad due to the different time zones. I also unearthed my old Skype account with the profile picture of me looking like a child and the myriad of contacts that I no longer recognise. 

“Who is he?” 

Some of the names and faces were utterly unfamiliar. But I found Skype to be patchy and unreliable. Obviously the main platform I was missing was WhatsApp. Not having the ability to instantaneously message individuals and groups was the main inconvenience from the off. 

I found out that you can’t upload photos or send messages on Instagram if you don’t have a phone. Messaging from a laptop is not allowed. And it lead me to ask why Instagram only lets you upload photos from your mobile? I guess it’s because they want to be with you all the time. 

Twitter ended up being my go to site as its’ functions did not differ whether on phone or laptop, so I could still post pictures and videos as well as sending direct messages. The only slight drawback of Twitter is that most people use it more as a work related platform and very few of my family and friends have it, so whilst it was useful in terms of messaging or getting in touch with some people, it had a limited effect. As I don’t use Facebook, Twitter became really useful on the trip mainly for catching up on the news. 

After I had my phone stolen I became extremely careful and cautious when going out and about and I actually started following the advice that everyone had been giving me for so long, i.e. just take out a small amount of cash with you when you leave the hotel, nothing else. 

There was an element of liberation to not having a phone at the same time as the downsides. For a short period I wouldn’t have Apple or Google or whoever else tracking my every move and my every internet search. I also had the situation whereby nobody could call me once I had left my accommodation. As I was travelling there was an element of freedom that I enjoyed. It was me on my own, back to basics. It was like being 15 again strolling into town, only now it was 2020 and I was in Rio de Janeiro… 

However there were things that I did find shifty about not having a phone; if there was an emergency and I did need to call the police, I wouldn’t have been able to. Inevitably when you are in Brazil you can end up in some edgy situations and knowing that I wouldn’t be able to call in an emergency did make me feel uncomfortable at times. 

The situation made me become much more resourceful and organised out of necessity. I would have to plan exactly where I was going each day and write down all the addresses of places to visit and the transport links of how to get there. As I had no Google maps to check en route, I had to ask for directions a lot, which made me practice my Portuguese and Spanish more than usual. One of the key learning strategies for improving your foreign language skills is to get out of your comfort zone, and without a phone in your pocket you are out of your comfort zone the whole time! So I can at least say that I my communication skills improved. A lot of the time though, when I was asking for directions people would dismissively quip,

“Just look it up on Google Maps.”

“OK Thank you.” 

That also happened when I was looking for new sites or places to visit, people would say, 

“Just have a look on Google, you’ll find lots of options there.” When I replied that I had had my phone stolen, they sometimes looked shocked and offered to Google the topic for me on their phone. 

Inevitably I ended up spending more money on the trip because I couldn’t use Uber. Not only are they more economical but they are seen as being a much safer option in South America for getting around. Regular taxis have a tendency to rip you off and take you on wild goose chases around the town whilst the meter is running. Over time I began to miss other uses of my phone. I always found it good to know how many kilometres I had walked in a day. On interesting days I’d walk 10 – 15 km whilst getting to know a new place. This is useful information especially if you don’t have the opportunity to work out much, as is the case when you’re on the hoof. 

Whilst I was walking around Montevideo in Uruguay trying to orientate myself, I came across something I hadn’t seen in years – an internet café! This was a relief as it meant I could check my emails and generally have a browse. The places barely exist anymore in the UK so I was pleasantly surprised.  I slotted in next to the gamers and some of the other lost travellers like myself with huge fans buzzing in the background. I logged in to these massive white Microsoft computers that actually worked really well. Things were going fine until I tried to open my email account (having had to relearn my password) when a message came up. 

“Someone has logged onto your email account from an unknown location. Please enter the security confirmation code that has been sent to you mobile phone now.”

It seems all roads lead back to the phone. I had to log out and move on. 

Another thing I missed was not having a portable camera in your pocket; sitting in a park on the coast in Montevideo, Uruguay as the sun turned the sky purple, white and orange across the Atlantic Ocean I thought it would be great to send an image of this idyllic scene to my family and friends. If I wanted to get a photo like that I would have to take out my camera and wait until I got back to my accommodation to upload the shots. This meant I had to be less spontaneous about what I posted and but also that I had more time to reflect on my online content. 

It was not just for taking pictures of interesting places that I had visited that was useful but also taking photos of things I needed to remember such as bus timetables or opening times. Normally I would take a quick shot of the page in question and forget about it until I needed the information, now I had to write everything down on a note pad but frequently on the back of my hand. 

The thing that you really notice is the lack of convenience that having a mobile facilitates. I remember going in a taxi to Buenos Aires airport and realising that I hadn’t checked in online before I left the hotel. Normally I would have done this en route in a few minutes. And I wanted to check the exchange rate between the Argentine Peso and the Brazilian Real and to see if I could get a decent rate at the airport. I also wanted to check the weather in my destination, Campinas, São Paulo to see if the flight was likely to be delayed. All of these things go on the backburner when you don’t have a phone and you’re left wondering about them. 

Making new contacts whilst I was travelling was also difficult without a phone. WhatsApp is hugely popular in South America and is used by companies as well as for social reasons, and without it, it was really complicated trying to get in touch with people. I had to give people my email address or take theirs which seemed like a cumbersome way of organising to meet up. Some people were completely fine with it and there was no issue, but for some replying to an email for a social event seemed like too much of an effort. There was also the language barrier issue of trying to spell out my email address in Portuguese or Spanish and most of the time I ended up writing it myself on people’s phone for them. 

Then there was the experience of noticing just how much time people spend on their phones. We’ve all had the experience of seeing a family of four in a café and all of them  glued to their screens, only putting the things down when their food arrives. This isn’t an unusual thing to see but you notice it more, because if you had your phone you’d be busy looking at it yourself!  But it raises the question, is someone on the other side of a video call or on a screen more interesting than a real person? 

The main concern about this situation is the amount of electricity we are using to power all of these phones; it must be going up exponentially every year.  The impact on the environment must be colossal and I doubt all the paper we are saving is enough to compensate for it. 

And then there’s the untoward and sinister stuff that goes on, on people’s phone’s screens. I only really paid attention to this because the absence of my own phone accentuated the point. The worst of these things would be people watching videos of things you really do not want to see on public transport. Due to the size of the screens on modern phones, it is almost impossible not to see or hear a video that a passenger sitting in front of you is watching. But there’s actually very little you can do in that situation, exposure to the content is almost unavoidable. 

And then there’s the endless conversations that seem to go on forever on long bus journeys. Sometimes I feel like going up to another passenger and saying,

“I don’t care what you’re going to do to your girlfriend when you get home, or what she thinks of it!” 

But again you’re probably better off keeping that information to yourself. 

When I got home and ordered my new phone I had the same fun and games and jiggery pokery with EE. After offering me a deal to get a new handset, they then rescinded that deal blaming the coronavirus crisis and subsequently offered me a more expensive package. Surely a sign of things to come. 

Now that I’ve ordered my new phone I’m really looking forward to getting back in touch with all the people I haven’t spoken to for the last two months, in what has been a turbulent time. I’ve realised that life without a phone in the 21^st century is almost impossible if you want to work, travel, socialise or generally have a life. Whether we like it or not these small computers in our pockets are now indispensable for getting by. 

By Lilia M. Schwarcz and Helosia M. Starling 

Published by Allen Lane, translated edition in 2018. 

Brazil’s past is covered in meticulous yet readable detail in this stunning new history of South America’s largest country. Schwarcz and Starling have produced an enjoyable read that takes the reader through the various stages of Brazil’s history, right from the early days of discovery and colonisation in the early sixteenth century, to the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and its consequences for the modern day country. These two historians have managed to produce an in depth narrative that manages to seamlessly combine social and political history. 

This is a large undertaking at 602 pages, however the text manages to keep the reader’s attention and is engaging throughout. The perspective from which the book is written is objective and fair and seeks to give as accurate an account of the past as possible. Key themes such as the transatlantic slave trade, the Portuguese Royal family’s arrival in Rio de Janeiro in 1808, the Brazilian Empire and the republican revolution of 1889 are all dealt with in a thorough way. The authors demonstrate a high level of research and the detail provided facilitates an easier understanding of what is a relatively complicated history. 

A series of five maps, demonstrating how the territory of Brazil has changed since its early days of colonization, to the present day, aid the reader in understanding the geographical environment in which the historical events take place which is extremely useful. They also show just how big the country became over a period of 500 years; indeed, with the exception of the region of Cisplatina, which makes up the current nation of Uruguay, Brazil did nothing but increase in size right up until the 1910’s. This is a demonstration of the truly continental size of the country. There are also a series of colour prints of relevant paintings and photos that illustrate some of the key episodes considered by the authors. 

Brazil has had a turbulent past but the authors do not seek to shy away from these difficult episodes, on the contrary they face them head on. Thorny issues such as national identity are discussed.  

“Since Brazil has been Brasil – since the country first created its identity as a nation – there has been a long history of internal conflict, violence, attempts at self- government and demands for equality – accompanied by the gradual development of human rights and citizenship. “

P.577

They are equally as unflinching when it comes to the gruesome subject of slavery and its legacy. This is a topic that is becoming more and more discussed in Brazil as an integral part of its past. In a subchapter entitled “Slavery is synonymous with violence” (p.85) the historians state.

“The repetitive, arduous, exhausting work on the plantations was in itself a form of violence. This forced labour, betokening as it did the authority of the master, instilled a constant feeling of dread, as well as terror of the collective punishments that were frequently applied.” 

p.86

Brazil imported the largest amount of captives from the African continent than any other nation, between 4 and 5 million slaves over four centuries of the trade. With this in mind it is good to see that the topic is now being examined in more detail and with more frequency. 

Dealing with more recent times, the military dictatorship of 1964-1985 is dealt with in a clear and balanced way, exposing some of the techniques used by the military hierarchy to justify their repressive and at times violent means of government. 

“The AI-1 [First Institutional Act] also allowed the military police to arrest people en masse, close off streets, conduct individual house-to-house searches, all of which occurred in 1964… when around 50,000 people were detained in a deployment that police baptized ‘Operation Cleanup’.” 

p.523

The crimes committed by the state during this dark period in the country’s history are discussed in a courageous way; this is still a traumatic topic for many Brazilians who lived through that regime and many of the atrocities are still coming to light today. The historians also relate the struggle that Brazil has faced emerging out of military rule and how democracy has had many setbacks since 1985. This included erratic economic policy and an instable currency, the nadir of which was the decision of the then president, Fernando Collor, to freeze all citizens’ bank accounts, which had a disastrous effect. 

“In the banks, part of the money [80%] in checking accounts was blocked… the amount withheld would be returned in eighteen months… Twenty years later 890,000 individual court cases and 1,030 class actions are still waiting for a judicial decision.” 

p.570

Mr Collor later (in 1992) resigned on the eve of an impeachment trial for corruption and misuse of public funds, an episode which demonstrated how long and complicated the road back to a semblance of stability would be for Brazil. In this analysis of the modern era, the historians manage to bridge the gap between history and political science giving the book an all encompassing feel, that gives the content a broader appeal. 

The strength of this “biography” is its brutal honesty. The historians are clearly trying to uncover uncomfortable truths about the past that they feel need to be given fresh airtime in an attempt to make sense of the present day nation. Whilst this makes for a harrowing read at times, it is however worthwhile for the clarity and insight that it provides. 

Brazilian history is not simple to understand and is also not a linear evolution, however the authors guide the reader through each era with a level of clarity and expertise so that light is shed onto even the most complicated episodes. In this respect is it recommended for Brazilianists as well as to readers unfamiliar with the topic. This is a masterful work written by two consummate academics at the top of their game. Single volume histories of Brazil are also relatively rare making this one even more significant. This is an excellent book of exceptionally high quality and therefore an unmissable read for anyone interested in the past or present of Brazil. 

• 

•