Brazil: A Biography

Shortlisted for the Jabuti Prize for the Best Brazilian Book Published Abroad

''Engrossing ... eye-opening ... an enormously refreshing treat'' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

Since Europeans first reached Brazil in 1500 it has been an unfailing source of extraordinary fascination. More than any other part of the ''New World'' it displayed both the greatest beauty and grandeur and witnessed scenes of the most terrible European ferocity. Its native people both revolutionized Europe''s ideas of itself and were then subject to extermination. For white settlers Brazil''s opportunities seemed endless, for imported black slaves it was a hell on earth.

Brazil: A Biography, written by two of Brazil''s leading historians and a bestseller in Brazil itself, is a remarkable attempt to convey the overwhelming diversity and challenges of this huge country - larger than the contiguous USA and still in some regions not fully mapped - from its