Rating: 
Summary: Informative-- yet readable!
Review: I wish my college textbooks had been written this well! Page's book is chock full of information about Brazil's history, politics, economy, culture, environmental issues, geography, and and and! I learned so much. And yet I found I could not put the book down. It is so readable, never dry. I'm becoming a frequent traveler to Brazil and this book really enriches my travels. I only wish I had an update! This book takes you up to about 1995 ... I'm busily researching now to see what happened in areas concerning the environment, the government, the economy, etc. that Page so successfully introduced. It's as if Page wrote the beginning of a great story...now I want to continue reading about Brazil, to see what's happened since then.
I can't finish this review without saying how sad much of Brazil's history is, and how much I admire the people's spirit.
Rating: 
Summary: A SURPRISINGLY FRESH AND ACCURATE WORK OF REPORTAGE.
Review: Joe Page cautions that this is not a work of scholarship but rather an effort by one who has been seduced by Brazil and
things Brazilian to record his impressions for the benifit of other non-Brazilians. What is surprising is that--unlike
most who attempt to capture Brazil in art or reportage--Page
achieves exactly what he set out to do. He understands the
nuances, he gets most of the facts right, he reports history
correctly, he discusses the most important issues, he profiles
people who are the most Brazilian of the Brazilians, and--believe it or not--he even understands economics. All of this from a professor of law at Georgetown University whose first trip to
Brazil was marred by the accompaniment of Ralph Nader and whose
second journey found him detained by the military as a possible leftist. Page's effort will take those who have already been
mesmerized by this always-smiling culture back to their favorite
beach or sidewalk cafe`--it will make them smell the smells and
feel the rhythms, and it will cause them to plot a return to their favorite place. Those who have only experienced Brazil
through this book will wonder just how "tall and tan and young
and lovely" someone can be. Bill G. Beham
Rating:
Summary: A superb portrait of contemporary Brazil
Review: Joseph Page's "The Brazilians" is a very enjoyable portrait of modern-day Brazil, quite possibly the best book on the country in English. Anyone traveling to Brazil for business or pleasure should read it. The book's jacket describes Page as a law professor at Georgetown, and with a lawyer's thoroughness and balance, Page explores the characteristics that make Brazil special -- the warmth, spontaneity and sensuality of the people, their unique blend of African, European and indigenous heritage, the music, soccer, Carnival, telenovelas -- without overlooking the country's often overwhelming problems, such as crushing poverty, environmental degradation, a boom-and-bust economy, violence and corruption.Although Page presents a comprehensive view of Brazil, he unfortunately neglects two topics that should be part of any portrait of the country. The first is its much-maligned capital, Brasília, which gets hardly a mention in this book. Brasília's founding in the late 1950's, its rapid growth and its decline into a moth-eaten, sun-baked museum of outmoded architectural ideas could have filled an entire chapter. For an engaging and upbeat view of Brasília -- more positive than anything I've ever heard from the Brazilians themselves, all of whom seem to loathe their capital -- check out Alex Shoumatoff's "The Capital of Hope." Page also doesn't say much about Brazilian food and drink, which is too bad, because from the moquecas of Pernambuco to the huge steaks of the South to the fish of the Amazon, Brazilian cuisine is a delight. A cup of Brazil's strong coffee accompanied by pão de queijo, a kind of popover laced with cheese, makes a breakfast fit for an emperor. Brazilian beer is just right for a hot afternoon, its wines are underrated, and the caipirinha -- a refreshing concoction of cachaça (a spirit distilled from sugarcane), crushed limes and sugar -- is surely one of the best cocktails in the Western world. Brazilian food and drink deserve wider recognition outside Brazil, but they don't seem to get any here. These minor complaints aside, Page has written a superb book. If you read only one book on Brazil, read this one.
Rating:
Summary: First rate overview of what makes Brazilians Brazilian
Review: My wife and I met in Seminary. She is from Brazil and we plan on moving there when I graduate. I have been to Brazil several times over the past few years and have fallen in love with their culture. But until I read this book, I did not know much of the history of South America's largest country. Page's book is an easy read, entertaining, and very factual. I found my self turning to my wife on a regular basis to discuss what I had just read. He was always right on! If you are planning a mission, vacation, or know a bunch of Brazilians, you have got to read this book. Call it Brazilian History 101. A great intro into Brazil's culture and history
Rating:
Summary: Married to a Brazilian
Review: My wife and I met in Seminary. She is from Brazil and we plan on moving there when I graduate. I have been to Brazil several times over the past few years and have fallen in love with their culture. But until I read this book, I did not know much of the history of South America's largest country. Page's book is an easy read, entertaining, and very factual. I found my self turning to my wife on a regular basis to discuss what I had just read. He was always right on! If you are planning a mission, vacation, or know a bunch of Brazilians, you have got to read this book. Call it Brazilian History 101. A great intro into Brazil's culture and history
Rating: 
Summary: Ideologically Colored "Brazilians"
Review: Page provides an overview of Braziilian history and culture, but is far too free with his often economically naïve and leftish comments that add nothing whatever to the story. He seems to operate from the notion that profits equal ill, while labor is equated with virtue. One wonders how the Soviet Union, where profits were outlawed and labor (skilled and educated) was plentiful managed to force its way into the ranks of the third world over 70 years of Marxist experimentation and misery. Page's views might have been a little less out of touch had they been published 10 years before Gorbachev, when there were still some serious economists who were still ignorant of what von Mises had shown six decades before --- that in the final analysis socialism could not work because of how it distorted human incentives. Page goes so far as to suggest that the United States may follow Brazil into economic ruin because of the market based policies that are increasing the size of the "economic pie," which necessarily increases the gap between rich and poor. Since the logical leap necessary to make such a conclusion requires the equivalent of rocket power, one can only wonder whether it instead represents an expression of the author's hope (perhaps unconscious). Like so many of his apparent ilk, it would be better for low income households to be even poorer so long as, in exchange, the affluent are less affluent. This "hope my neighbor's barn burns down" philosophy may warm the hearts of comfortable elites who would never have to feel the pain of such policies, but would make the real poverty daily experienced by others even more desperate. A good example of Page's gratuitous comments is on page 491. After having praised the comparative economic success of Curitiba, capital of Parana, he goes on to attribute part of it to not having "allowed itself to be overwhelmed by ... extensive, oppressive poverty." This is akin to crediting good health to not having allowed one's self to be overwhelmed by disease. Perhaps Page is not completely aware of the special conditions that have made Curitiba and its less impressive than Chamber of Commerce hyped success possible. Or perhaps, he believes that Curitiba policies would have made Sao Paulo an urban planning paradise that would have successfully repelled the inconvenient impoverished millions who have moved there from the Northeast (where hopelessness sprawls even more than in Sao Paulo). All in all, what could have been a literary triumph deteriorates into an extensive ideological pamphlet. I am in the market for a good history of Argentina under Peron. Page's is not on my list.
Rating:
Summary: Ideologically Colored "Brazilians"
Review: Page provides an overview of Braziilian history and culture, but is far too free with his often economically naïve and leftish comments that add nothing whatever to the story. He seems to operate from the notion that profits equal ill, while labor is equated with virtue. One wonders how the Soviet Union, where profits were outlawed and labor (skilled and educated) was plentiful managed to force its way into the ranks of the third world over 70 years of Marxist experimentation and misery. Page's views might have been a little less out of touch had they been published 10 years before Gorbachev, when there were still some serious economists who were still ignorant of what von Mises had shown six decades before --- that in the final analysis socialism could not work because of how it distorted human incentives. Page goes so far as to suggest that the United States may follow Brazil into economic ruin because of the market based policies that are increasing the size of the "economic pie," which necessarily increases the gap between rich and poor. Since the logical leap necessary to make such a conclusion requires the equivalent of rocket power, one can only wonder whether it instead represents an expression of the author's hope (perhaps unconscious). Like so many of his apparent ilk, it would be better for low income households to be even poorer so long as, in exchange, the affluent are less affluent. This "hope my neighbor's barn burns down" philosophy may warm the hearts of comfortable elites who would never have to feel the pain of such policies, but would make the real poverty daily experienced by others even more desperate. A good example of Page's gratuitous comments is on page 491. After having praised the comparative economic success of Curitiba, capital of Parana, he goes on to attribute part of it to not having "allowed itself to be overwhelmed by ... extensive, oppressive poverty." This is akin to crediting good health to not having allowed one's self to be overwhelmed by disease. Perhaps Page is not completely aware of the special conditions that have made Curitiba and its less impressive than Chamber of Commerce hyped success possible. Or perhaps, he believes that Curitiba policies would have made Sao Paulo an urban planning paradise that would have successfully repelled the inconvenient impoverished millions who have moved there from the Northeast (where hopelessness sprawls even more than in Sao Paulo). All in all, what could have been a literary triumph deteriorates into an extensive ideological pamphlet. I am in the market for a good history of Argentina under Peron. Page's is not on my list.
Rating:
Summary: I recomend.!
Review: The author is not a "brazilianist", he cover all the aspects of braziliam culture, even details like brazilians japanese descend dekaseguis
Rating:
Summary: Self-devouring serpent must shed its past before eating
Review: The Brazilians by Joseph A. Page Addison-Wesley, 540 pages, $27.50 1995
reviewed by D. D. Dunkerson 1000 words.
Mr. Page, a professor of law, in his first chapter introduces the reader to Brazil and Brazilians as derived from his sixteen visits to the country over thirty years. He has also authored books on NE Brazil, a Nader Report, and Peron. He informs the reader that his themes are selective and not comprehensive; but one cannot be selective in the general attributes he places within his "Brazilianness".
His "Brazilianness" encompasses qualities of graciousness, great anticipation of greatness, pleasantness, hospitality, politeness, tenderness, and delicacy. Without native words for "understatement", Mr. Page then adds grandiose, sweetness, energetic, sensual, extraordinary adaptability, carefree, mawkish, intense personalism, and current attainments rather than the two in the bush. As for quantities of Brazil derived from such qualities, they are most impresssive: 5th largest country, more Brazilians than all but five nationalities, 153 million people, largest Roman Catholic population, 50% of the population under 20 years old, largest black population outside Africa, and more Japanese except for Japan itself. In a land where the world's largest concentration of wealth is located, there is an abundance of ores, sugar, soybean, and corn for a populace of 66% poor, 71% without running water, 79% without refrigeration, 85% without sewage disposal, 50% without schooling.
Brazil has for so long a time been characterized by the SE sliver of coast - by Rio and Sao Paulo. The interior, a vast place, has been mostly rural and very poor, even by Brazil's standards. Climatic conditions, overpopulation, and pharaonic governmental projects can force the rural poor outward to the periphery of Brazil in the NE and SE. Their pressure against a tiny slice of coast where cariocin Carnival in mild form prevails at all times vs. the paulistian hardworking heavily industrialized dynamo has promoted an urban criminality of poor vs. rich.
The poor press hard enough that a low value for life prevails, a more subtle than USA's racism is accentuated and some of those pressured undertake measures, with impunity, to relieve the tangible and almost suffocating hindrance of daily activity. They resort to magical religions. They melt in a pot in which no single taste sums the ingredients. Some finally use surrealism, however primitive, for rebuttal to such a bewildering morphism.
After his introduction, Mr. Page devotes most of the remainder of the book to chapters concerning a broad survey of Brazilian factors with profiles of prominent personages.
The Portuguese -- disparaged, but having had Family as a definition of social, economic and personal relations that arose amidst a monarchy and an empire in Brazil that had a distaste for organization.
The Africans -- In Brazil it is neither black nor white as all the intermediate shades are accepted in an ongoing process of miscegenation which is to "whiten" the people. Brazilians brought in six times the number of slaves as did the USA and Brazil did not end slavery until 1888. In 1891 the slavery archives were burned. People of "color" are in the majority. In the cities blacks are 80% of the population, but government is 90% non-black.
The Have Nots -- There are places like Sao Conrado having a glass cylinder as a hotel, with an apartment building deluxe, tennis courts, swimming pools, golf course, glistening beach, sanitation, health care, and education. Going up the hills above Sao Conrado is Rocinha, a favela of 300,000 people, like many others to which the poor have flowed from worse conditions in the countryside. Many of these poor are perhaps destined to become a dehumanized subspecies. They travel in the favela on foot through animal stench, sewage flow, no police, no fire department, and a too expensive private medical care. They need public health care in a matrix of understaffing, poor maintenance and malfunctioning equipment. They take hours to get to a job not paying a living wage. They ride overcrowded,undependable and unsafe trains or buses. The worst conditions are in the NE which contains the largest concentration of wretchness (rural or urban) in the Western Hemisphere. Children who "want to die" are allowed to do so.
The Culture of Brutality -- The national, state, and local military or police have used terror, torture, and repressive means against the governed. The have-nots use force against all (themselves included). This vast cycle of violence is as the animal whose head feeds itself by devouring its own tail. Brutality becomes routine, ordinary.
Suffer the Little Children -- Murder, or street kids, who can be violent themselves, is conducted by death squads. The lawless children enjoy an impunity matched only by some Brazilian elite but the children number 32 million in poveruy and the elite aren't being hunted down. The kids want to run away to what they see on TV. They know "nobody is born stealing."
Where is Brazil? The author notes that Sao Paulo does not have a "there" there, no localizing locality. In this city is the most powerful commercial and financial center in the Western hemisphere outside the USA. If not in Sao Paulo, then perhaps in "Amazonia" -- 40% of the country and a gossamer cover for an Amazon Basin becoming debased far too rapidly? Or in Rio where one's appearance is the ne plus ultra living?
There has to be a "where" for the "there" and where are the Brazilians? Look to the soccer fields where there is sustained a degree of involvement that not even Carnival can match. Look to Carnival where there is an astonishing dedication, diligence, imagination, and enthusiasm. Look to the telenovelas where there one finds viewer ratings approach 100% for television productions akin to soap operas but only more so and not so.
Look to a national circus where there is no center ring. One doesn't find capitalism there ( Catherine Deneuve is quoted as asserting that the Brazilians are too carefree) but foreign investments are increasing as exports boom and inflation eases. Despachantes act as guides through bureaucratic mazes; and there is jeitinho -- a rapidly improvised creative cultural response to potentially confrontational situations.
Lastly look to the heart, Brazil has been mentioned as the heart of the planet. Look among these people named for where their "there" is located -- the paulistas, cariocas, mineiros, nordestinos, gauchos, and curitibanos. There you will find hardworking, funloving, frugal, introverted, and fiercely independent individuals. But a Brazilian "individual" isn't an American one. The author quotes Roberto da Matta, and I paraphrase, to the effect that there is a Brazilian destiny and the freedon within it to practice loyalty to friends, anything for family and, most of all, to be where there is the knowledge that Brazilian relationships will not allow for one to be walking alone in life.
Rating:
Summary: First rate overview of what makes Brazilians Brazilian
Review: This book effectively captures the spirit of "brazilianess" and presents it to the reader in an easy to understand format. Page openly admits that the analysis presented in the book is through his eyes, which is an honest admission that this is not necessarily a scholarly study of Brazilian culture. That said, the book does not lack for adequate research and Page obviously knows his Brazilian history and culture and spent years putting this book together. The fact that it is not a "scholarly study" is probably what makes it an interesting read. This is a great book to get a basic understanding of Brazil, its culture and its wonderful people. If you are traveling to Brazil I highly recommend reading this before you go or while you are there. It will help you understand a lot of what you encounter.
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