Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia has built its economy around attracting international tourists to what is billed as the locus of Afro-Brazilian culture and the epicenter of Brazilian racial harmony. Yet this inclusive ideal has a complicated past. Ch

H. Lynn Beck had no clue what to do after finishing his master’s degree in Vermont, so he applied to join the Peace Corps. Eventually, he was invited to work in Brazil, and he agreed to work in education in the state of Mato Grosso. He began counting down the days to the start of training. While his Portuguese consisted of ninety-five percent Spanish and five percent Portuguese, he managed to communicate. Working in the geographic center of South America, he felt as if he’d been dumped into a pressure cooker as it was so hot and humid. After thirty days in Cuiabá, he took a new position in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. Even though it meant moving five hours away with more than a half-million people, it also gave him the chance to stay. Working at the state agricultural extension office, not much was expected of him, but he had an excuse to stay in Brazil for at least another two years, allowing him to learn the language and culture. Join the author as he travels rural roads, meets large rats and tarantulas, and makes friends while immersing himself in a rich culture.

Macro-level study of the South Atlantic throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries demonstrating how Brazil’s emergence was built on the longest and most intense slave trade of the modern era. The seventeenth-century missionary and diplomat Father Antônio Vieira once observed that Brazil was nourished, animated, sustained, served, and conserved by the “sad blood” of the “black and unfortunate souls” imported from Angola. In The Trade in the Living, Luiz Felipe de Alencastro demonstrates how the African slave trade was an essential element in the South Atlantic and in the ongoing cohesion of Portuguese America, while at the same time the concrete interests of Brazilian colonists, dependent on Angolan slaves, were often violently asserted in Africa, to ensure men and commodities continued to move back and forth across the Atlantic. In exposing this intricate and complementary relationship between two non-European continents, de Alencastro has fashioned a new and challenging examination of colonial Brazil, one that moves beyond its relationship with Portugal to discover a darker, hidden history. Luiz Felipe de Alencastro is Professor of Economic History at the Sao Paulo School of Economics, Director of the Center for South Atlantic Studies, and Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Paris, Sorbonne.

When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.

Look to Brazil for safe, stable investments As the future of the American economy seems to get bleaker by the day, it is tempting to look abroad for business opportunities. Europe and Asia don't provide much hope, but what about somewhere that's both closer to home and sunny year-round? In Brazil is the New America: How Brazil Offers Upward Mobility in a Collapsing World, James D. Davidson shows that the current financial situation in Brazil is a haven for those looking to make money in a world in turmoil. With a population just 62 percent the size of that of the US, Brazil has added 15,023,633 jobs over the past eight years, while the US has lost millions. In a world burdened by bankrupt governments and aging populations, Brazil is solvent, with two people of working age for every dependent. In a world of "Peak Oil" Brazil is energy independent, with 70 billion barrels of oil, 60% of the world's unused arable land, and 15% of its fresh water. Comparatively non-leveraged—and with significant room for growth and expansion, as well as vast natural resources, Brazil is a haven of opportunity. Written by James D. Davidson, the editor/publisher of Strategic Investment and cofounder of Agora and the media outlet, Newsmax, Brazil is the New America details: How the original "America" now embodies the brightest hope for realizing the American Dream while the "Old America" is headed for a dramatic decline in the standard of living Investment opportunities not only for those willing to relocate, but anyone who can consider investing there The cost structure of employment in Brazil versus the United States Brazil has already learned its lesson about the dangers of inflation. Cash has taken the place of credit, and high interest rate returns are now the norm.

Reflecting on some of Brazil's foremost challenges, this book considers the porous relationship between legality and illegality in a country that presages political and societal changes in hitherto unprecedented dimensions. It brings together work by established scholars from Brazil, Europe and the United States to think through how (il)legalities are produced and represented at the level of institutions, (daily) practice and culture. Through a transdisciplinary approach, the chapters cover issues including informal work practices (e.g. street vendors), urban squatter movements and migration. Alongside social practices, the volume features close analyses of cultural practices and cultural production, including migrant literature, punk music and indigenous art. The question of (il)legalities resonates beyond Brazil's borders, as concepts such as "lawfare" have crept into vocabularies, and countries the world over grapple with issues like state interference, fake news and the definition of "illegal" migration. This is valuable reading for scholars in Brazilian and Latin American Studies, as well as those working in literary and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, geography and political science.

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.