1 comments about Brazil: A Land of the Future (Studies in Austrian Literature, Culture, and Thought Translation Series).

1. Stefan Zweig draws upon his personal experiences andimpressions of Brazil to portray a vast, inviting, fertile land of immense resources and a history devoid of major wars in Brazil: A Land Of The Future. Here portrayed is the untouched beauty of the Brazilian interior, the vibrant growth and progress of the urban areas, and a vision of an almost utopian place seemingly unaffected by the ills of the modern world and providing refuge from global hostilities. Ably translated into English by Lowell A. Bangerter, Brazil: A Land Of The Future is recommended reading for armchair travelers, students of geography and western hemispheric studies, and Brazilian history, culture, and society.

No comments about Brazil: The Land (Lands, Peoples, and Cultures).

No comments about Paraguay, Brazil and the Plate.

No comments about Sao Paulo Guide (BRAZIL UNIBANCO TRAVEL GUIDE).

No comments about Mato Grosso, Last Virgin Land: An Account of the Mato Grosso, Based on the Royal Society and Royal Geographical Society Expedition to Central Brazil,.

3 comments about The Brazilian Photographs of Genevieve Naylor, 1940-1942.

1. Genevieve Naylor was a PSA photographer hired by Nelson Rockefeller to travel through Brazil and document how American's wartime allies lives and worked. Her large format, beautifully printed photos reveal the texture of life in a proud and vibrant country. The author of this book provides clear and highly insightful analysis of the historical context in which to understand and appreciate Naylor's genius.



2. The photographer, Genevieve Naylor, went to Brazil after working for the Associated Press and the Roosevelt administration's photographic corps. She brought to her assignment a wonderful eye for composition and an affection for the simple aspects of Brazilian life. This is a compelling book that is beautifully printed and handsomely presented. The author does an excellent job of setting the scene, too.



3. This is a beautifully-produced books with haunting photogrpahs of a Brazil that has largely vanished. The focus is on people, and the photographer captures their humanity. Excellent analysis and history too.

2 comments about "Civilizing" Rio: Reform and Resistance in a Brazilian City, 1889-1930.

1. This a major addition to the social history of urban life in Brazil, and Latin America generally. By shifting the emphasis from workplace struggles to conflict over urban space, Meade allows us to rethink dramatic and sometimes puzzling episodes of popular protest in turn-of-the-century Rio de Janeiro (such as the revolt against compulsory smallpox vaccination). Her argument that these protests should be seen as part of the contest over capitalist modernization, and are no less "modern" than workplace struggles in nearby Sao Paulo, adds to the ongoing discussion of political consciousness as forming in struggles both within and beyond the point of production. Meade also explores the implications of "urban beautification" for the popular classes in a way that connects processes in Rio with broader global tendencies during the Age of Imperialism. Finally, the book is highly readable and accessible to the non-specialist, and can be used in courses ranging from introductory undergraduate surveys to graduate seminars.



2. This book provides both a useful overview of urban social history in turn-of-the-century Rio de Janeiro and a unique and convincing analysis of how poor urban and suburban residents responded to urban renewal projects. The author places her analysis in an engaging, accessible, and accurate narrative of the city's broader history, weaving together the findings of a broad array of specialized secondary works. Her own primary research on popular protests provides a crucial part of this history, and her conclusions are suggestive of how popular movements might be understood elsewhere as well. The book shows that the effects of undemocratic urban administration can be disasterous for the least powerful sectors of the population. Yet is also shows that the urban poor were by no means "marginalized," nor did they decline to participate in orderly, legal forms of protest. Riots and violence exploded in Rio only after poor residents had tolerated arbitrary and violent government implementation of urban policies, and after they had found other avenues of appeal to government officials closed. This book is effective in undergraduate and graduate courses alike. In addition to providing an excellent overview of Rio's early twentieth-century history, the book stimulates students to think critically about urbanization, class conflict, forms of protest, and the peculiar concerns of non-industrial nations to create images of order and civilization in the early twentieth century.

5 comments about Blood of the Wicked.

1. This book has already received rave reviews, but it doesn't hurt to add my praise. It's a brutal, graphic story at times, but Gage's notes at the end show he knows the Brazilian world he portrays. Leighton Gage's knowledge of the political, economic, and religious problems in Brazil is shown in his vivid descriptions of the cruelty of life.
   
   Blood of the Wicked introduces Mario Silva, Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters in the Brazilian Federal Police. He's a well-educated man, with a law degree and training with the FBI. And, he's a complicated character. It's well known in the country that Brazilian justice is subject to bribes, money and power. When Silva's father his brother-in-law were killed in the early years of Mario's career, he took matters into his own hands. Silva understands that sometimes "Brazilian justice" isn't actually justice.
   
   Silva's latest case starts out as a problem, and only grows more complicated. Before it's over, it involves landowners and the landless, the state police, the media, street kids, and the Catholic Church. It begins, and ends, with the death of priests. When a bishop is assassinated, Silva's dislikable political boss sends him to take charge. He arrives to find his case entwined with a recent death of a family in the landless movement. Brazil has a constitutional obligation to confiscate untilled land and give it to the landless. The landowners fight back. The landless occupy land they don't own, and violence results. And, the corrupt police support the landowners in many areas.
   
   As Silva and his small team from the Federal Police investigate, they only face opposition from the state police and the landowners. Before Silva can put together the facts, he finds events escalating out of control, as reporters are murdered, the families occupying land are massacred, and each clue leads to more violence. And, suspicion alone can't solve the case.
   
   Leighton Gage has written a powerful debut mystery. He brings Brazil to life, with the complex politics, and ugliness of the poverty, and, at times, the life. For those who object to the brutality in the book, the author explains that documented deaths are over 1,500 in Brazil's land wars. Gage shows the extremes of poverty and wealth, capturing it vividly in two scenes linked by one character, the mother of a street boy. He tells of the family tragedies in Brazil, and the crime. And everything is linked together, the lifestyles, the police, the politics, and the Church. Chief Inspector Mario Silva himself, is a complex man, who has witnessed, and lived, the contradictions of Brazilian life and "Brazilian justice."
   
   I'm waiting for the return of Silva in the sequel to Blood of the Wicked.



2. In a carefully crafted mystery-thriller debut Blood of the Wicked, Leighton Gage reveals a little- seen side of Brazil. This is not a beach book of tanned and toned bodies moving to a languid bossa nova rhythm along the sandy shores of Rio de Janeiro. Nor is it an Amazon adventure. This story takes place in the pantal of the southeastern region. It is a gristly tale of greed, torture, murder, and of personal and institutional corruption in a country where one percent of the population owns half of the arable land, and where much of the peasantry is condemned to a life of involuntary servitude.
   
   The story reveals the region to be a breeding ground for strife and Gage loses no time throwing us into the fray. Enter Dom Filipe Antunes, Bishop of Preidente Vargas, descending by helicopter on the town of Cascatas do Pantal to bestow blessings on the new church of Nossa Senhora dos Milagres. The bishop is greeted by a ring of townspeople, a crescent of banners of the Landless Worker's League and a posting of State Police. The delegation of local officials approaches at an annoyingly slow pace and a bullet from a high-powered rifle finds the bishop's heart as he stands alone.
   
   Who did it? Was it landless workers upset that Christianity was not being practiced on its most fundamental level? Or was it wealthy landowners looking for another excuse to persecute the land-reform agitators?
   
   Enter the institutions. The Vatican is upset. Powers in Brasilia demand a politically balanced solution. The job falls on the shoulders of protagonist Mario Silva, Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters of the Federal Police of Brazil.
   
   Mario Silva knows a lot about criminal activity in Brazil -- urban variety, anyway. In the book's early pages we learn how his father was murdered by robber after making a fatal mistake -- stopping for a red light. We also learn how Mario Silva found the robber and exacted justice, urban Brazilian style. Subjects of Silva's investigation included pawn brokers, street kids, hoodlems and policemen who supplement their income by shaking them down. Silva's action did not involve arresting his father's murderer and bringing him to trial. However, distinctive feature's of the robber's tatoo and the uniqueness of the stolen object made Silva absolutely certain that he had gotten and dispatched the right man.
   
   Investigating the murder of the Bishop in provincial city of Cascatas do Pantal, Silva is not able to take such decisive action. He is hamstrung by bureaucracy, blocked by the uncooperative Colonel of the State Police, and is hampered by people's fear to speak. As Silva investigates systematically we learn many interesting facts the way. We learn about the "Theology of Liberation" which was once advocated by rural priests and has now found the disfavor of the Church hierarchy. We learn of the vast fazendas (rhymes with haciendas), some as large as Connecticut. We learn that the constitutional allows for seizure and purchase of unused portions of these large holdings by populist movements. We also learn that the legal process is complicated and that the judges are for sale.
   
   In Blood of the Wicked, Lieghton Gage serves up a strong brew of horror story, police procedural, slasher novel and whodunit. It would defy classification were it not a true and never- ending story. It is the story of a land war and frontier justice, south of the equator. A landowner has his overseer nail a protesting peasant to a tree. A group of hooded vigilantes rousts the landowner from bed, butchers his overseer in front of his eyes, then carts the landowner off to be buried alive at the top of a hill. We learn that the commandant State Police is not just a bureaucratic short-timer, but is one of the bad guys. The priests, we learn, come in several flavors besides Jesuit and Franciscan. Escalating violence gets way ahead of Chief Inspector Silva's procedural investigation of the initial crime. The struggle becomes a combination of range war and Mafia turf fight with many players lending a hand. When the dust settles, justice is served, but mainly because Silva the only honest man left standing and because national TV cameras are poised to broadcast the story.
   
   The "ripped from the headlines" quality of Blood of the Wicked is the result of the author's wide experience with the Brazil, which includes marriage and frequent visits to the country.



3. I like to read in bed before going to sleep. Usually it helps me relax and opens the way for a restful sleep. However, the interwoven multidimensional plot of Blood of the Wicked kept me up till 4 in the morning. I kept on telling myself that I'll put the book down at the end of the chapter; however it didn't quite work that way as the book kept on pulling me along. The author has that special knack that I'll call literature chocolate truffles. I'll keep on consuming each line until I read the whole thing. The only difference is that instead of eating an entire box and putting on 3000 calories I am stuck craving his next novel.
   
   As far as the story content, I would recommend reading Duncan Haynes review. He did a good job describing the absorbing storyline and unique setting.



4. This is an extremely well written and engaging book by a first-time published author. I can't wait for his next mystery to come out in January of next year. Not only is the story exciting, the characters are fascinating and the Brazilian backdrop extremely interesting. I strongly recommend this book.



5. It is very rare indeed when I feel the Amazon peer review system has guided me to a book I don't enjoy as much as the other reviewers. This unfortunately is one of them.
   First off, it isn't a mystery. You'll know who the villain is just a few pages in. Second, the background of Silva, the federal policemen investigating the crimes, was overly melodramatic and contrived. Indeed the whole book is melodramatic and predictable. The only surprise is the continued brutality, which admittedly may be a part of Brazilian land disputes, but here only helps in tallying up the number of innocent victims. The overall tone is preachy and in only a couple of instances admits that the solutions to Brazil's land problems lie in some sort of compromise. The rest of the book is full of brave landless peasants fighting against evil landowners and corrupt cops with only the help from their friends, the equally brave Vatican defying Liberation Theology spouting priests (there are evil priests here too). I don't want to ascribe any politics to Leighton Gage, since I don't know much about him, but if the next book also has an overtly social reformist tone it'll be a disappointment as well.

No comments about Explorations of the Highlands of the Brazil: With a Full Account of the Gold and Diamond Mines. Also, Canoeing down 1500 Miles of the Great River Sâo Francisco, from Sabará to the Sea. Volume 2.

No comments about Brasil.