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

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	• The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir Fernando Cardoso PublicAffairs, 2006 - 312 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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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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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 Read!

I picked up this book to begin a lesson in the history of Brazil, of which my boyfriend is a citizen. This is by far the best history book I have ever read. Fernando Henrique does a wonderful job of telling the story of his country intertwined with the story of his family, giving the reader a better understanding of his unique perspective of his country. It is informative and entertaining at the same time. Highly recommended.

Cardoso - good timing for Brazil

I really enjoyed this book. Cardoso tells the story of his rise to power in a very humorous manner and fills the gaps with Brazilian political history. Cardoso comes off as a very likable man and treats opponents with a fair hand. Cardoso was obviously the right man at the right time for Brazil. He beat Lula twice and Brazilians can be happy for that. Cardoso introduced the real, redistributed farm lands to poor families, brought free HIV medicine to Brazil, fought against corruption, and privatized the phone company - allowing hundred of thousands of Brazilians to get connected. By the time Lula was finally elected, he had no choice but to accept Cardoso's policies because they work for Brazil. Cardoso brought Brazil into the modern age. I love Brazil and have gained a great deal of respect for Cardoso. Excellent read.

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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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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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 darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministers with the ferocity of an Amazon piranha.

This was just one of the turns in a largely unscripted and sometimes unwanted political career. In exile during the harshest period of the junta that ruled Brazil for twenty years, Cardoso started his political life with a tentative run for the Federal Senate in 1978. Within fifteen years, and despite himself, this former sociologist was running the country.

And what a country! Brazil, it is often said, is on the edge of modernity, striding with one foot in mid-air towards the future, the other still rooted deep in a traditional past. It is a land of sophisticated music and brutal gold-digging, of the next global superpower and the last old-time coffee plantations. It is gloriously ungovernable, irrepressibly attractive, and home to the family, friends and extraordinary life of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This is his story and his love song to his country.

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