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• The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir
Fernando Cardoso

PublicAffairs, 2006 - 312 pages

average customer review:based on 14 reviews
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   highly recommended  highly recommended






Wonderful biography of a remarkable, yet poorly known, President of Brazil

Fernando Henrique Cardoso was Brazil's penultimate President. Brazil is the 2nd largest country in the Western Hemisphere, one of the world's 10 largest economies, a major exporter, and yet, as Cardoso rightly points out, many Americans, Europeans, and other foreigners associate Brazil with little more than, "soccer, carneval, and the girl from Ipanema." Additionally, there are still associations of Brazil as a "banana republic" and with the military dictatorship. Cardoso shows very personal sides of Brazilian history, from his ancestors' role in the founding of the modern Republic of Brazil, to his career as an academic, his exile, his persecution under the military dictatorship, to politics, to the Presidency. He gives us many "behind the scenes" views of his life as a politician and President in Brazil. His views on the economy and foreign relations are very pragmatic and seem rational. Overall, very well-written and I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand this important country, as well as to those already interested in Brazilian/Latin-American studies.


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A personal and national history - and a good story

Cardoso hails from Brazil's first family, and he weaves a very readable history of Brazil through the stories of his grandfather, father and family friends (and enemies). The author evolves from professor to exile to president, forging Brazil's economic reform policies for a decade and staking his own claim on the country's history.

A left-leaning sociologist-turned-economist, Cardoso became famous in the 1970s for the dependency theory (dependencia), trying to explain the relations between the U.S. and Latin America (and first- and third-worlds more generally). But as finance minister in the 1990s, he authored quite un-socialist policies of the Plano Real, breaking inflation through budget cuts, currency reform and attracting foreign investment. He identifies himself with the New Left of Clinton and Blair.

This (I hope) will be effective in the classroom as a personal introduction to a fascinating and important country, and as an insider's perspective on the challenges and responses in globalization-era Latin America. Even allowing for the risk of poetic license in autobiographers and co-writers, the book at times reads like an adventure, with stirring characters, dramatic crises and indefatigable, inveterate hope.





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An Imminently Readable Introduction to the Nation of Brazil--its history, politics, economy, and culture

In planning a trip to Brazil, I was looking for a readable history of Brazil's past 100 years to give me an understanding of the nation, its history, and its challenges. Fernando Henrique Cardoso's book appeared to be a perfect choice: it combines history, and social and economic analysis with a personal biography of one of Brazil's finest presidents.

Like most autobiographies, The Accidental President of Brazil is not an objective work. Cardoso does defend his policies and programs, especially his work in developing Brazil's modern currency--the Real. Cardoso, to his credit, did prove to be an effective inflation fighter who instilled some discipline into the samba economy of Brazil. He also strengthened the country as a democracy and won kudos from foreign leaders, the IMF, and the World Bank.

However, Brazil's problems are far from over. Parts of its major cities--the notorious favelas--are ungovernable, and are giving the country a terrible reputation abroad. Poverty and unemployment, which go hand in hand with urban slums, also plague the country. Cardoso draws an interesting analogy between the favelas and the Bronx and Harlem, New York, in the 1970s. Harlem, he argues, looked ungovernable in 1975, but now it is a center of urban renewal and culture. President Clinton even has an office there. In short, if we take a long term view of the favela problem, he explains, positive change is a true possibility. After all, property within a stone's throw of Copacabana beach cannot be slum for ever.

The inevitability of progress sounds like the positivist philosophy of Brazil's founders, and in fact, Mr. Cardoso's grandfather was one of a group of military officers who overthrew Emperor Dom Pedro II and founded the modern state. Cardoso, though, is far too complex to fall into a positivist trap. As an academic, he's often more concerned about explaining Brazil's problems and possibilities than establishing his place in history with a laudatory biography. He employs self-deprecating humor throughout the book and is as quick to point out his failures as his successes. The more I read the book, the more I came to admire the man. I also now know much more about the world fifth largest country, and the biggest economy in Latin America than I did before reading the book. Will Brazil be the next India? Read this book and judge for yourself. Do Brazil!



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Greatest President of Brazil

Wow, I was so shocked when I took this book out of the library and it read so smoothly. Unlike most presidential memoirs, Ferdinand Henrique's stays away from the boring "name dropping" that leaves the reader bored and unimpressed. Cardoso provides a great deal of information on the political history of Brazil while intertwining anecdotes from his own life at just the right time. As a true sign of modesty, his work is constantly footnoted with what he seems to claim are better biographies of him at certain points in his life and political career. This is a great book for anyone who would like an amazingly smooth memoir by one of the most modest people to ever write about himself (I am sure Saint Augustine has him beat with the self-deprecation).


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Great opening... trails off slow and unfulfilling in the end...

let's use some soccer (football) analogy. this book is like a football game. first 20 minutes of the game was extremely interesting and filled with surprises and excitement, second 25 minutes continued to be interesting but less so, as if the game has topped out. after intermission, the second half of the game became stale and flat, as if the players lost interest and just hung out on the field and let the clock run out. readers are left with yearning for more.

may be football is not the best analogy as President Cordoso admitted that he does not really like soccer and in fact, he did not watch much soccer. i supposed as an avid reader, he would rather read a book than watching soccer. in fact, reading this book, the distinct impression is that President Cordoso is more of a member of Brasil's intelligentia class than a politician or sociologist. i say this with great respect as throughout the book, tremendous amount of ink was expensed in illustrating how the President, duing his youth and adult life engaged and enjoyed doing the intellect thing (late night political discussion, intellectual dialectic on the beach, writing his thesis for think tank etc). the impression is even during President Cordoso's political life (mayoral, senate and finally presidential), he was more an academician or scholar than a politician. this is distinctively different from my impression of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton who are no less smart but portrayed themselves as a common Joe Blow, in Reagan's case, a supposedly farm boy from the midwest and Bill Clinton, a poor white boy from the south. In President Cordoso's case, he was a intellect, scholar from a powerful family.

despite coming from a powerful family, the President is an extremely humble person as one can read throughout the book. due to this, i developed a tremendous respect for the President. i also admired the President for admitting that Brasil has big racial problem and that while Brasil presents itself to the world as a "white' country, in reality, it is more a "black" country (as 45% of Brasilians are of african descent). this is great honesty. my disappointment is, the President only achieved half of the success he set for himself in addressing racial inequality during his 8-year tenure. by the President's own admission, even the prestigeous USP refused to establish an affirmative action program to accept African Brasilian students. finally, i also like the easy going presentation of the President who discussed contemporary brasilian history in the most story telling way. as a non brasilian who did not know anything about brasil's history, the President's descriptive of Brasil's transformation from a colony to Republic is distinctively clear, easy to understand and most of all, extremely interesting. this is the best highlight of this book.

now the lowlight. the President did not discuss much about the Cold War. he downplayed Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire and Freedom principle. in fact, the President never mentioned Reagan's contribution to the Cold War but attributed the downfall of the Soviet Empire as if this was a chinese Yin/Yan turning of the tide during a mystical cycle. the President has his own ideology ground to cover, i can appreciate that but also disagree with him. however, the great disappointment to me was the President did not discuss some critical element about the military era of Brasil. we know he went into exile and his family suffered, he also lost some of his best friends as the military regime created disappearance of these folks. however, the President never wrote about the big elephant in the room, i.e. who were the military elements? names of the players? what did the military do to brasil (other than imprisoning or murdering the intellectual class and other opposition elements, putting brasil out of democracy). i am interested to know the President's personal view of those military Generals? he did expressed his view (disapproval) of US under Nixon's support of the military regime. OK, so Nixon as in US, but who are these military, who is xyz to the military regime? where are they now? what are they doing now? on behalf of the nation, the President apologized and paid indemnity to the victims but were the culprits brought to justice or were they applied the "forgivenss brasilian style"? we don't know after reading this book. does the President still consider them a threat to Brasil's democracy? the book never addressed this. this is the most disappointing part of the book. finally, the book gave me a distinctive impression that in Brasil, the common folks are DOWN THERE and the intellectuals are UP THERE, playing the role of the savior attemtping to save those DOWN THERE. may be this style works in Brasil to attract the vote. i remember my mid level brasilian colleague who told me he has fresh OJ squeezed for him every morning by his maid..... the UP THERE/DOWN THERE thing?

so, all in all. a very interesting book although i wish the book can go a little furthermore.



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