BRAZIL: A Decade of Ditadura

Just ten years ago it was called the United States of Brazil—a functioning democracy with a representative government patterned on the American model. There, however, comparison with the U.S. ended. Although Brazil was the giant of South America, with about half its 6,888,000-sq.-mi. land mass, it was perennially hamstrung by internal problems. Now much of that has changed. Today Brazil, with a population of 103 million, is the major political and economic influence in South America; moreover its exports are spreading so far beyond the continent's shores that it is being billed...