The Brazilians

Book excerpt: A country warmly hospitable and surprisingly violent, physically beautiful, yet appallingly poor—these are the contrasts Joseph Page explores in The Brazilians, a monumental book on one of the most colorful and paradoxical places on earth.Once one of the strongest market economies in the world, Brazil now struggles to emerge from a deep economic and social crisis, the latest and deepest nose-dive in a giddy roller-coaster ride that Brazilians have experienced over the past three decades. Page examines Brazil in the context of this current crisis and the events leading up to it. In so doing, he reveals the unique character of the Brazilian people and how this national character has brought the country to where it is today—teetering on the verge of joining the First World, or plunging into unprecedented environmental calamity and social upheaval. Not since Luigi Barzini's The Italians has a society been so deeply and accurately portrayed.