Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed.

• Author: Liberman, Annalisa
• Position: FURTHER READING - Brief article - Book review

BRAZIL ON THE RISE: THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TRANSFORMED

Larry Rohter

(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 289 pages.

As the title suggests, Brazil on the Rise is an ode to the country's increasing economic, political, and cultural importance on the world's stage. The author serves up a broad taste of his adopted home that can be likened to a multi-course meal. Chapters, like individual courses, cover topics ranging from the Amazon to samba. Rohter appropriately mixes in the theme of consumption throughout the chapters. He begins with the country's ability to absorb a mosaic of indigenous, Portuguese, and African cultures and finishes with a discussion of the eating away of resources, most notably acres upon acres of the Amazon rainforest. While the book does a superb job of describing the distinct flavors of Brazil using broad strokes and anecdotal nuggets taken from the author's own experiences, it lacks focus and cohesion between topics. This is apparent in the lead chapter where the country's 500 year history is told in a chaotic twenty-two pages.

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