Brazil S Long Revolution

The book analyzes the origins and development of the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement, one of the largest and most innovative current social movements--Provided by publisher.

The final writings of Samir Amin—a mix of personal experiences and theoretical analysis of global challenges and movements In this second volume of his memoirs, Amin takes us on a journey to a dizzying array of countries, recounting the stages of his ongoing dialogue over several decades with popular movements struggling for a better future. As in his many works over the years, The Long Revolution of the Global South combines Amin’s astute theoretical analyses of the challenges confronting the world’s oppressed peoples with militant action. In these final writings based on his life, Amin presents us with theoretical interventions, analyses of political conjunctures, and narration of personal experiences. Amin’s reminiscences of travels to places too often overlooked by the world at large are a joy to read. We even catch a glimpse of some of his memorable—and sometimes not so memorable—culinary adventures.

The third of October 2020 marked the 90th anniversary of the Brazilian Revolution of 1930. Although this event is recognized in Brazilian historiography as an important landmark in the construction of contemporary Brazil, debate, discourse and indeed publications commemorating the event have been much less numerous and profound than would be expected. Comparisons have been made with what took place in 1980, the year of the revolutions fiftieth anniversary, where meaningful historical judgements were made across a wide spectrum of society and the political establishment. It is pertinent to ask why there is no longer the appetite for substantive discussion on the Vargas period. Perhaps it is due to the new political climate in Brazil in the last decade, especially with regard to various projects aimed at labour and trade union reform, the main legacies of the revolutionary period which today are considered by many as obstacles to the modernization of the labour market and the country's economic development. Given the economic imperatives and aims of the 1930 Revolution, a re-evaluation of the Vargas Period will assist in better understanding the contemporary economic issues that face Brazil today. The exercise is neither one of nostalgia or exaltation of this past period, but rather to offer a (positive and negative) overview of Vargas legacy and the vast historiography that surrounds it. Scholars, politicians, business and the Brazilian workforce need to learn from past economic choices in order to better understand the challenges that contemporary Brazil faces. Recently proposed reforms have strong overtones to the revolutionary agenda of the 1930s, namely the forging of a New Brazil and the necessity of avoiding political schism. This book examines the political, economic, labour, cultural, military, and gender ramifications that will guide debate.

In Occupying Schools, Occupying Land, Rebecca Tarlau looks at the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement over the past thirty-five years to illustrate how social movements can use state services, such as schools, to support their social change goals. Through a detailed ethnographic and long-term examination of the MST's educational struggle, Tarlau shows how educational institutions can in turn help movements build capacity and social influence. This bookprovides an analysis of how activists convinced government officials to implement these educational practices and how these initiatives strengthened the movement.

James P. Woodard's history of consumer capitalism in Brazil, today the world's fifth most populous country, is at once magisterial, intimate, and penetrating enough to serve as a history of modern Brazil itself. It tells how a new economic outlook took hold over the course of the twentieth century, a time when the United States became Brazil's most important trading partner and the tastemaker of its better-heeled citizens. In a cultural entangling with the United States, Brazilians saw Chevrolets and Fords replace horse-drawn carriages, railroads lose to a mania for cheap automobile roads, and the fabric of everyday existence rewoven as commerce reached into the deepest spheres of family life. The United States loomed large in this economic transformation, but American consumer culture was not merely imposed on Brazilians. By the seventies, many elements once thought of as American had slipped their exotic traces and become Brazilian, and this process illuminates how the culture of consumer capitalism became a more genuinely transnational and globalized phenomenon. This commercial and cultural turn is the great untold story of Brazil's twentieth century, and one key to its twenty-first.

Informed by Eric Wolf’s Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, published in 1969, this book examines selected peasant struggles in seven Latin American countries during the last fifty years and suggests the continuing relevance of Wolf’s approach. The seven case studies are preceded by an Introduction in which the editors assess the continuing relevance of Wolf’s political economy. The book concludes with Gavin Smith’s reflection on reading Eric Wolf as a public intellectual today.

When Wolfgang Friedmann died there was a great outpouring of grief, affection and admiration from his friends all over the world. These deeply felt sentiments were soon channelled into a number of projects to honor him. The initiative towards the preparation of this volume in tribute to Wolfgang Friedmann was taken by his colleague, Hans Smit, of Columbia University, who also arranged for its publication. Judge Philip C. Jessup was the chairman, and Professors John N. Hazard, Louis Henkin, Oliver Lissitzyn, Willis L. M. Reese and Hans Smit of Columbia University Law School, A. A. Fatouros of Indiana University Law School (Bloomington), and Gabriel M. Wilner of the University of Georgia Law School were members of the editorial committee. The authors of the essays are a group of distinguished legal scholars from many countries and who hold widely diverse views. All of them had many ties with Professor Friedmann, including those of friendship and shared interest in problems that were of the greatest concern to him. The number of eminent jurists from countries around the world, and particularly from the United States, who would have wished to participate in this tribute to Wolfgang Friedmann is large; however, several important considerations made it necessary to limit the number of contributions. Thus, for example, the work of several members of the editorial committee is not represented in the volume.