Brazil: Five Centuries of Change (Latin American Histories)

Europeans first became aware of the huge territory called Brazil as a distant outpost of what the Portuguese conquerors called the Estado de India, a far-flung "network of coastal enclaves running along the Indian Ocean, from Mozambique, around the Malabar coast of India, and all the way to Macao on the coast of China." Thomas Skidmore, a noted historian of Latin America, writes that it quickly emerged as something more, however: a near-fabulous land of opportunity. An early gold rush outside Rio de Janeiro confirmed this view, and Brazil attracted huge numbers of immigrants, so many that the Portuguese crown was forced to limit the number of young men who attempted to leave their native country in favor of the newfound promised land. And, for a time, Skidmore continues, Brazil indeed led the world in the production of gold, diamonds, and other precious gems and minerals, making considerable fortunes for a lucky few. Governmental ineptitude assured that Brazil never translated that wealth into a comfortable life for all its inhabitants, a condition that has endured to the present. Skidmore traces the history of Brazil from the time of the European conquest to the late 1990s, yielding a highly useful one-volume history that students and general readers alike will enjoy. --Gregory McNamee