The Economic and Social History of Brazil since 1889

Francisco Vidal Luna received his PhD in Economics in 1980 from the Universidade de São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil, where he also was Professor of Economics until 1997. Author of some 50 articles and papers and 11 books on Brazilian economic history and the Brazilian economy, he has been an academic, a government administrator, and a banker. Herbert S. Klein received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1963 and is Gouveneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. Author of some 25 books and 165 articles in several languages on Latin America and on comparative themes in social and economic history, he is currently a Research Fellow and Latin American Curator at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

'Brazil … [is] already the seventh largest economy in the world and is poised to become the fifth largest by mid-century. And yet, to foreigners it remains a broadly exotic country … Part of the reason why [it] remains a known unknown to the world at large is the lack of an authoritative account of the historical trends that have defined modern Brazilian society and economy. With the publication of [this book] this will no longer be the case. Eminent economic historians [Luna and Klein] provide a detailed analysis of the evolution of Brazilian society and economy from the end of the empire to the present day. Led by the fluent prose and the deep knowledge of the authors, readers will marvel at the deep changes that have occurred in more than a century of Brazil's history and at the extraordinary position in which the nation now finds itself …' Edmar Bacha, Casa das Garças Institute of Economic Policy Studies

• Introduction; 1. The old world republic 1889–1930; 2. The Vargas period 1930–45; 3. Formative democracies and military interregnum 1945–85; 4. Consolidated democracy, 1985–2012.