The Throes of Democracy Brazil since 1989

In the 1980s, Brazil emerged from two decades of military dictatorship and embarked on an experiment in full democracy for the first time in the nation's history. Since then, Brazilians have sought to live up to the ideals of this experiment while negotiating dramatic economic and cultural transformations.InThe Throes of Democracy, Bryan McCann gives a panoramic view of this process, exploring the relationships between the rise of the political left, the escalation of urban violence, the agribusiness boom and the spread of pentecostal evangelization. Brazil remains a land marked by deep inequality, but in the last two decades the structure of that inequality has changed substantially.

Bryan McCann teaches Latin American history at Georgetown University, where he is Director of the Brazilian Studies Program. He has written broadly on Brazil's cultural and social history in the 20th century. His first book Hello, Hello Brazil:  Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil was published in 2004. His current research focuses on the recent history of urban conflict in Rio de Janeiro.