Review

Textbooks and Readers

Greenwood Press began publishing a series of short modern histories in hardback recently. This series includes Germany, Nigeria, Spain, among others, and now Robert Levine has added Brazil to the collection. The idea is to bring up-to-date, analytical histories to students and laypeople that focus on the rapidly changing nature of contemporary affairs across the globe over the last four decades. This is a daunting task, since the authors must provide a basic historical narrative that avoids the "one damn thing after another" approach, while moving the book into the post-W.W.II era. Levine's entry succeeds admirably. He provides a succinct narrative of Brazilian history that is at once readable and inclusive of the major elements of national history. Not surprisingly, the two liveliest chapters are the first and last.	1
In the first, "An Earthly Paradise," the author ranges widely over geography, politics, climate, race relations and culture, giving the reader a mosaic of Brazilian reality, now and over time. This is especially important given Brazil's immense size (over 3 million square miles) and the diversity of both its geography and human history. Brief descriptions of folk religions, environmental issues and the jeito, or the traditional knack of Brazilian problem solving, highlight this chapter. The reader comes away with a sense of how Brazilian society operates, at least on the surface.	2
Levine raps up this short book with a chapter on "Social and Economic Realities." Here the gritty realities of modern nation-state development appear in all their gloomy aspects. In the late 1990s Brazil claimed the eighth largest gross domestic product in the world, entered the "trillion-dollar-economy" club, and increased its exports of such products as grains, aircraft, and shoes to all parts of the world. Yet the upper 20 percent of the population owns over 60 percent of Brazil's wealth. Half of the country's workforce, over 35 million adults, labor in the underground economy for sub-standard wages, with no benefits, while discretionary income has vanished in the last decade to currency fluctuations. Urban population growth now strains the social services of all Brazilian cities to the breaking point. Although there has been steady growth in industrial employment, it has not kept pace with the country's explosion in new people. Brazil may well have over 200 million citizens by the first quarter of the new century. However, there is some good news as well, as Levine makes clear. Global investors have poured billions into the country since the early 1990s. The current presidential administration committed its support to ambitious transportation plans designed to modernize ports, highways and the rail system over the next decade. Income levels are rising in most parts of the nation, but whether they can rise quickly enough to offset price increases due to Brazil's ever increasing involvement with world markets remains a gamble. Levine concludes this chapter by quoting President Henrique Cardoso's famous 1994 analysis of the situation: "Brazil is no longer an underdeveloped country, but it is an unjust country." As long as Brazil remains an unequal country in terms of income and economic opportunity, it will be unable to reach the next level of national development.	3
Between the two chapters are five that survey Brazil's history from the fifteenth century to the present in a straightforward and clear narrative style. There is also a chapter on the political system as it has matured during this century. The star performer of this chapter is Getulio Vargas, Brazil's most important political figure of the century. Levine links a great deal of the present day political culture to his influence as president and authoritarian leader in the 1930s and 1940s. The author includes a glossary, a list of notable people and a short but informative bibliographic essay. However, there is only one map, and it does not show states or important geographic features mentioned in the text. Pictures of the difference regions and peoples of Brazil would have enhanced the presentation as well. As with other volumes in the series, its style is very accessible, while providing a great deal of information about Brazil in just over 200 pages. All of the above makes this a good candidate for classroom use, at both the undergraduate and graduate level. A paperback version would certainly make the book more attractive to a variety of courses.	4
Long Beach City College   Craig Hendricks

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