Recounts Brazil's evolution from remote Portuguese colony, through economic crises that led to more prudent monetary policies, and to its new status as a regional leader, a respected ambassador for the developing world, and an increasingly important partner for the United States and European...

Border and progress : the Amazon and the estado novo -- "The quicksands of untrustworthy supply" : U.S. rubber dependency and the lure of the Amazon -- Rubber's "soldiers" : reinventing the Amazonian worker -- The environment of northeastern migration to the Amazon : landscapes, labor, and love...

International influence -- Explaining growth -- Comparative colonialism -- Statistical regularities -- Nested inference -- Destroying Mozambique -- Constructing Korea -- Brazilian variations -- Holistic empiricism.