Anyone who pays attention to global problems knows that Brazil, the world’s largest country physically and by population the eighth largest, has been in a financial crisis for several years. Most Americans, however, do not understand the origin of that crisis or how recent events, including the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, have affected it.

Writing Brazil in Crisis: The Joy and Pathos of a Nation, Marianne Campagna set out to explore what has resulted in Brazil’s current crisis. Today, Campagna is a citizen of the United States, but she spent her formative years growing up in Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s. She herself is not Brazilian, was born in China to a Chinese father and a German mother, and immigrated to Brazil as a child. He then immigrated to the United States when he was young. However, for Campagna, Brazil will always be at home. Growing up near Rio de Janeiro, she came to love the customs, culture, and people of Brazil, and her heart bleeds to see the increase in crime and corruption in this land that is also so full of joy, laughter, and cultural wealth. traditions.

Campagna’s main focus in this book is to explain the 2018 presidential elections in Brazil to readers outside the country so that they can understand the political process in Brazil and all the factors that came into play in electing Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil. To fully understand the choice, Campagna argues that you have to understand Brazil, so he takes readers on a cultural journey through Brazil, its past and present.

As an American today, Campagna also explores how Brazil is similar to and yet different from the United States. Jair Bolsonaro has been named the “Trump of the tropics” because he admires Donald Trump and in many ways has similar policies. At the same time, the United States is a country that believes in tough individualism, while Brazil is a more collective society. Quoting Mother Teresa, Campagna speaks of loneliness in the United States, where people often don’t even know their neighbors, while in Brazil there is a true sense of community. The two countries also share a history of being European colonies and having a legacy of slavery that continues to affect them. These and other comparisons help American readers better understand the Brazilian experience and judge for themselves the merits and shortcomings of this remarkable nation.

Campagna begins his discussion by documenting the burning of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro in September 2018, just before the national elections. This tragedy resulted in the loss of many wonderful artifacts. From there, Campagna launches into a discussion of numerous topics, dedicating separate chapters to Brazilian society, Brazilian culture, Brazilian history, favelas (slums), corruption, crime, fiscal reality, and finally , the 2018 presidential elections, and a look at the future of Brazil.

After reading Brazil in Crisis, I was eager to learn more about Brazil. I lamented the poverty of the people who live in the slums, while admiring their resourcefulness and ability to live without many of the things we take for granted in America. I could listen to Brazilian music and taste Brazilian food and I enjoyed traveling through the streets of Rio and through the Amazon. At the same time, he was grateful that he had not lived under a military dictatorship or experienced crime and government corruption to the extent that it exists in Brazil.

The description of the Brazilian political system was especially interesting. Campagna explains that while Brazil is technically a democracy, it is incomplete as such. Many damaging forces plague the government and its political system, including corruption at the highest levels. In addition, it has more than forty parties, so it is understandable that each party wants to take the country in a different direction, making it difficult to reach a consensus on what is best for the country. During elections, if no candidate receives a majority of votes, the two parties with the most votes face off in a second election to determine who will be elected. In this scenario, it is possible that a party that had less than 5 percent of the vote initially could be elected to power.

At the same time, Campagna is quick to point out the division of social classes in Brazil. There is the upper class and then there are all the others, who make up the true Brazilian people. These people are warm and friendly and are proud of their cultural heritage. Campagna, like most of the Brazilians he knows who have emigrated elsewhere, misses most of the people of Brazil, which is why he continually travels back to the land of his childhood.

I could say much more about the beauty, magic and sadness that mark Brazil, but the best thing is that you read it in Brazil in Crisis. Then take a trip there to experience Brazil for yourself. After reading this book, I think you will be eager to go, and in the end you will realize that we are all citizens of the world and the more we understand each other, the more we will realize that we have more in common with our Latino Neighbors than we think. .