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Rating: 
Summary: Thorough Look at the Roots of a Movement
Review: "Cutting the Wire" is a thorough look at the history of MST - the Landless Movement in Brazil. Brazil's rural poor began organizing in the late 1970s, during the military regime, occupying unused farmlands and agitating for ownership of family-size plots. MST was founded in 1984 and has grown larger and stronger in the years since. Branford and Rocha have no pretense of academic objectivity: they are perfectly up-front about their leftist ideology and sympathy for their subject. This is occasionally annoying, because all of the assessments are skewed in one direction, but it is manageable for the critical reader. This perspective becomes particularly unsuitable in the final chapters, which give an overview and a look forward. But the accounts of MST are interesting. Interviews with peasants and leaders, discussions of well-known land invasions and demonstrations in Para and Sao Paulo states. These make the book worthwhile. At least they have done their research, talked to the principals, and got their dates and facts mostly in order.This is far stronger than Branford's previous work, "Carnival of the Oppressed", a stilted under-researched account of Brazil's Workers' Party, and it is certainly more comprehensive than Rocha's "In Focus Brazil", a strange little cultural travel-guide. "Cutting the Wire" is far from perfect, not at all even-handed, but is nevertheless a useful contribution to understanding modern Brazilian history.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough Look at the Roots of a Movement
Review: "Cutting the Wire" is a thorough look at the history of MST - the Landless Movement in Brazil. Brazil's rural poor began organizing in the late 1970s, during the military regime, occupying unused farmlands and agitating for ownership of family-size plots. MST was founded in 1984 and has grown larger and stronger in the years since. Branford and Rocha have no pretense of academic objectivity: they are perfectly up-front about their leftist ideology and sympathy for their subject. This is occasionally annoying, because all of the assessments are skewed in one direction, but it is manageable for the critical reader. This perspective becomes particularly unsuitable in the final chapters, which give an overview and a look forward. But the accounts of MST are interesting. Interviews with peasants and leaders, discussions of well-known land invasions and demonstrations in Para and Sao Paulo states. These make the book worthwhile. At least they have done their research, talked to the principals, and got their dates and facts mostly in order. This is far stronger than Branford's previous work, "Carnival of the Oppressed", a stilted under-researched account of Brazil's Workers' Party, and it is certainly more comprehensive than Rocha's "In Focus Brazil", a strange little cultural travel-guide. "Cutting the Wire" is far from perfect, not at all even-handed, but is nevertheless a useful contribution to understanding modern Brazilian history.
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