About this title: What is it like to govern one of the world's most notoriously ungovernable, most vibrant countries? Brazil's former president offers a candid, wry and illuminating view. Fernando Henrique Cardoso received a phone call in the middle of the night asking him to be the new Finance Minister of Brazil. As he put the phone down and stared into the ...
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Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Date Published: 2006-03-13
ISBN-13:9781586483241ISBN:1586483242
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Date Published: 2006-03-13
ISBN-13:9781586483241ISBN:1586483242
Description: Very good. Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks), in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781586483241ISBN:1586483242
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. SC. This is a new book with handling wear that consists of: DJ has light edge wear; DJ has 2 small tears. Book and cover are clean and bright with nice tight binding. Very Good. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 291 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Satisfaction guaranteed. Domestic orders shipped daily using Media Mail rates from USPS with Delivery Confirmation. W/E and holidays orders shipped next business day. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Date Published: 2007-03-26
ISBN-13:9781586484293ISBN:158648429X
Description: New. A great book in new condition. may show slight signs of shelf wear. We provide USPS confirmation tracking and email when we ship. We want your complete satisfaction. read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781586483241ISBN:1586483242
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 291 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Excellent condition read more
Edition: Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9781586483241ISBN:1586483242
Description: New in new dust jacket. Beautiful new hardcover, crisp and unmarked, stated 1st edition, 1st printing! No remainder or other marks. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 291 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Public Affairs
Date Published: 2007-03-26
ISBN-13:9781586484293ISBN:158648429X
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9781586484293. read more
Edition: First edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: PublicAffairs, New York
Date Published: 2006
Description: Near Fine in near fine jacket. A Memoir. 8vo. xi, 22 pp. Bound in quarter green over orange boards, in illustrated dust wrapper. Near Fine, bright, clean copy, with light bumping to head and tail of spine, in Near Fine dust wrapper with light bumping to head and tail of spine. read more
"Hard to be objective when you're a former politician painting the story of your legacy. But Cardoso did some pretty dope stuff. He was a sociologist by training and approached the presidency from a sociological point of view. Stabilized the currency. He was in favor of legalizing drugs. Interesting guy. Would love to hear the other side of this story too."
"This book reads like magical realism in some portions. It is true that any nation's history is filled with the occasional odd character but Cardoso brings a sense of humor to his descriptions of certain Brazilian politicians that make them fantastic. The first chapters include an emperor who's fondness of fried chicken was so great that he always kept small bits in his pockets everywhere he went and a dictator who defended himself from his office with a machine gun when fascists intended to take him by storm.
The book is hardly a comedy or a novelty tale intended to make readers shake their heads in disbelief. It is the memoir of the ex-president of an influential, modern nation. His handiwork is evident in the ever more prosperous country that exists today. He was at times hunted by a military dictatorship. His friends died and were tortured for a desire to live under a democracy. Despite this his story isn't one of outrage. It is the complex and intelligent story of a man who, despite evidence to the contrary, felt there were reasonable answers to the problems in his country and that Brazil was a governable nation.
He was first and foremost an academic who came to politics late in life. He believed that his experience as a scholar allowed him to confront the problems facing Brazil better than a career politician. The evidence provided by the changes he brought to Brazil suggest that he had some special quality.
This is a great book for those not normally interested in books about politics and history because they find the writers to be dry and uninviting. It is even a good book for those who don't really care about such topics at all. This is a book that anyone who loves a good story will enjoy."
"This breezy political autobiography is a nice introduction to recent Brazilian history, if you can stomach FHC's false humility. It forms a nice addition to A Death in Brazil by Peter Robb, which examines closely the corruption of the Collor presidency.
Cardoso gives a useful view of modern Brazil. The Prestes Column and the revolt of São Paulo in 1932 are given as examples of how tenuous the rule of the federal government of Brazil was. And the inability of Brazil to effect normal changes of government in the 50s and early 60s was given as a profoundly Brazilian weakness. This has been something I believed ever since the first Angolan elections after the end of the civil war there. It's not the first democratically elected president of a country that matters, but the second or third. It's when transition doesn't cause a crisis that democracy can be said to be sustainable. He also talks about how decisions made by Portugal in the 16th century (offering enormous land grants to settlers) have fed into the endemic inequality of today. This kind of commonsense observation helps one make sense of Brazilian history.
After the military finally gave up power in Brazil, they essentially handed power over to Tancredo Neves. Neves, however, died before he could take office. Neves was a fairly independent politician who was acceptable to the pro-democracy forces. The military had forced them to accept José Sarney as his running mate. Sarney was seen as the military's man. So in 1985, Sarney became the first non-military president of Brazil since the early 60s. The military had left Brazil in sorry shape, suffering from hyper-inflation and many other ills. Sarney failed to improve the situation-indeed, the inflation just got worse. Out of fear of Lula, the left-wing candidate, Brazil elected Collor in 1989. His pathetic story is told in gruesome detail in Robb's book. Not only did Collor not solve Brazil's inflation problem, he stole millions if not billions.
Meanwhile, Cardoso was slowly progressing politically. He is at pains to claim he had no political ambition, but he was clearly destined for politics from an early age-his father and grandfather were politically active-and when he was forced into exile by the military regime, he was instantly politicized. So even though he was a practicing sociologist, he was always involved in the struggles to reassert democracy-and that meant being in politics.
He was a senator when Collor's successor (and vice president) Itamar Franco hired him to be foreign minister. After three failed finance ministers, Franco brought in Cardoso. At this point, Cardoso accomplished one of the great economic/political feats in modern history-he introduced a new currency (a common occurrence in Brazil) and tamed inflation.
Now the most unbelievable part of the book is when he says he ran for president because he was afraid Lula would win. Lula was still too radical to win. Cardoso rightly thought Lula's ideas were backwards, especially as command economies were collapsing all around the world.
So Cardoso ran and won, twice, both times against Lula. He had already done his heroic thing. He says, "My presidency was, at its most basic level, about trying to turn Brazil into a stable country." That's what he accomplished during his presidency. His biggest crises were the worldwide debt crisis in the late 90s and AIDS, and he acquitted himself pretty well. And after he was term-limited out, an older, mellower Lula finally won (his fourth try). And Lula has been a more-or-less steady leader, fiscally reasonable, and a counterweight to the semi-radicals elected in Venezuela and elsewhere.
Cardoso is charming, and this book worth reading. Perhaps it's too much to ask for more detail, more economics, more nitty-gritty politics, more detail. But still I wish it had them."
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