The Gardens of Roberto Burle Marx

Book Description

The great Brazilian landscape architect's bold use of striking plant materials made him the most influential designer since Gertrude Jekyll. This study, done with Burle Marx's cooperation, traces the roots of his artistic vision and illustrates the plants he grew for use in his own designs.

Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil

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Important and Worthwhile Read
Essentail to the study of dependency
A fabulous classic on dependency theory
The book is about Dependent Development

Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil
Peter B. Evans
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Policy & Current Events | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies
Politician's Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America (California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy , No 25)
Embedded Autonomy
Dependency and Development in Latin America
Bringing the State Back In

ASIN: 0691021856

Customer Reviews:

Important and Worthwhile Read.......2004-04-25

While a challenging read, Evans offers us an invaluable look at Brazil's shift from "classic dependence" to "dependent development". This is not a look at class struggle but rather an in-depth look at the internal make-up of the Brazilian elite. Evans shows us that Brazil's economy at the beginning of the Twentieth Century based on primary exports, though profitable, was simply too volatile and too susceptible to pressure from emerging competitors. What followed was a shift towards industrialization and a place in the semi-periphery, based on "a delicate combination of social forces and historical circumstances". The nature of the subject matter is complex but the importance of Evans' leftist take on the evolution of the Brazilian economy is too important to have this put you off. For those interested in the Brazilian case, or those curious as to how a state makes the shift from the classically dependent periphery to the less dependent semi-periphery, this book is a valuable addition.

Essentail to the study of dependency.......1999-11-08

An important case study of Brazilian economics and dependent develpoment. By no means an easy read, but more than well worth the time.

A fabulous classic on dependency theory.......1999-01-28

Just the quickest of all notes: a very good book, a classic. Not "silly with cumbersome words," as described by another reviewer. You must pay attention to what you are reading here, hence not for all readers

The book is about Dependent Development.......1998-10-13

The book is real silly. The writing style of the author suggests that he really doesn't know what he's talking about. He uses words that unnecesarrily cumbersome. He also uses them out of context. This is my review. A real silly book that is difficult reading.

Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment

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THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION OF MADNESS

Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment
João Biehl
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social Psychology & Interactions | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

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Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl (In-formation)
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (California Series in Public Anthropology, 4)
Biocapital: The Constitution of Postgenomic Life
Of Two Minds: An Anthroplogist Looks at American Psychiatry
Testing Women, Testing the Fetus : The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America (The Anthropology of Everyday Life) (The Anthropology of Everydaylife)

ASIN: 0520242785

Book Description

Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil's big cities--places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita. Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the "dictionary" she is compiling; and to trace the complex network of family, medicine, state, and economy in which her abandonment and pathology took form.
As Biehl painstakingly relates Catarina's words to a vanished world and elucidates her condition, we learn of subjectivities unmade and remade under economic pressures, pharmaceuticals as moral technologies, a public common sense that lets the unsound and unproductive die, and anthropology's unique power to work through these juxtaposed fields. Vita's methodological innovations, bold fieldwork, and rigorous social theory make it an essential reading for anyone who is grappling with how to understand the conditions of life, thought and ethics in the contemporary world.

Customer Reviews:

THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION OF MADNESS.......2005-09-07

Destined to become an immediate classic, Joao Biehl's Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment unfolds like a mystery and reads like a novel. Extraordinary is the way in which the author examines a single, tragic woman as a lens through which the ills of society become visible. With compassion tempered by acuity, Biehl introduces us to Catarina, an impoverished migrant in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre who pedals feverishly in a static bicycle within the confines of Vita, a clinic of sorts where diseased and insane people are abandoned. Catarina is struggling to become part of life, regain affection and recapture social connections after more than 12 years of erroneous diagnoses and perilous medicalization. Is she really insane? To give out the answer would betray much of what makes the book extraordinary. The reader is led into a world of market forces, inefficient bureaucracies and decomposing family ties in which no one and everyone is responsible for Catarina's fate. Although the book focuses on a Brazilian city, it's lessons transcend national boundaries--it is as meaningful in the U.S. as it would be in Turkey. Other authors have masterfully written about the poor and excluded but very few have been able to etch in detail a life worth living while at the same time unmasking the larger forces that shape ndividual fates. With this book, Biehl joins a small number of ethnographers who have successfully achieved that feat.

Travessia: A Video-Based Portuguese Textbook : Units 7-12 (Travessia)

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Decent text, Skip the video
Decent text, Skip the video
Travessia emphasizes Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese

Travessia: A Video-Based Portuguese Textbook : Units 7-12 (Travessia)
Jon M. Tolman , Ricardo M. Paiva , Nivea P. Parsons , and John B. Jensen
Manufacturer: Georgetown University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

English (All) | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books

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Travessia: A Video-Based Portuguese Textbook Caderno De Exercicios/Preliminary Edition Units 1-6/Portuguese (Travessia)
Travesia Manual De Laboratorio, Travessia, Portuguese Language Textbook (Travessia)
Travessia: A Portuguese Language Textbook, No 1 (Travessia)
Larousse Concise Dictionary: Portuguese-English/English-Portuguese (Larousse Concise Dictionary)
501 Portuguese Verbs (501 Verb Series)

ASIN: 0878402284

Customer Reviews:

Decent text, Skip the video.......2000-01-26

Although Travessia provides a well-designed introduction to Portuguese by providing beginner vocabulary on an appropriately broad number of subjects as well as a casual, unintimidating approach to the grammar, one should beware the accompanying videos which are HORRIBLE. The producers should be ashamed to have realeased such amateur quality skits the background music of which often drowns out the speakers themselves. These videos are an embarrasment to Brasil and its people. The one saving grace of the first video is a performace by Joao Gilberto of "Canta Brasil" which reminds us why we are learning the language in the first place, and allows us to forgive, for a moment, the rest of the atrocity.

Decent text, Skip the video.......2000-01-26

Travessia emphasizes Colloquial Brazilian Portuguese.......1998-05-12

Travessia rates high in teaching the everyday Portuguese one hears in Brazil. Grammar points are reinforced by numerous exercises and by the videos that accompany Travessia. The book is intended for a person learning a foreign language for the first time. If one possesses knowledge of other romance languages, it will seem Travessia moves too slowly. If one is looking for a quick transition from another romance language to Portuguese, a solely grammar based Portuguese text may be more appropriate. Travessia also does well with respect to the culture covered throughout the book. Another emphasis of Travessia is the development of pratical language skills (e.g. telephone, hotel, and travel vocabualary/situations).

Average customer rating:

Splendid photography

Pantanal: South America's Wetland Jewel
Russell A. Mittermeier , Monica Barcellos Harris , Christina G. Mittermeier , Jose Maria Cardosa Da Silva , Reinaldo Lourival , Gustavo A. B. Da Fonseca , and Peter Seligmann
Manufacturer: Firefly Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Ecology | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Wetlands | Ecosystems | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

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Brazil: Amazon And Pantanal (Travellers' Wildlife Guides)
The Pantanal: Understanding and Preserving the World's Largest Wetland
Birds of Southern South America and Antarctica.
Smithsonian Atlas of the Amazon
Amazon Basin Map

ASIN: 1554070902

Book Description

A spectacular tour of the world's largest wetland.

The Pantanal covers 81,000 square miles in the middle of South America, extending over parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay.

About half the size of California and 20 times the size of the Everglades, the Pantanal flood plain is the largest wetland network on Earth.

Pantanal reveals the abundant wildlife and beauty of this remarkable eco-system, home to some of the most spectacular concentrations of flora and fauna on the planet.

The text explains the Pantanal's ecology, its people, plants and animals, presented in five chapters:

The Pantaneiro: People of the Pantanal
Wetlands
Grasslands
Forests of the Pantanal
Caiman: the comeback crocodile.

The book also examines the impact of deforestation, overfishing and overhunting in the Pantanal and the efforts by conservationists to protect this magnificent region for future generations.

Pantanal is a superbly photographed tour of one of the most memorable regions on the planet.

Customer Reviews:

Splendid photography.......2005-12-02

Pantanal - just one word that makes you itch to see for yourself the wonders of this magical wetland in the heart of Brazil! Dozens of caimans lurking in the current, mouths agape; a big jaguar comes stalking through the understory at the shoreline; giant otters appear out of thin air right next to the boat; a tapir crosses the lagoon in marvelous light; a group of hyacinth macaws gathers on a fence of a fazenda, and in the savanna a young giant anteater clings cutely to his mother's fur - wildlife photographers' dreams, subjects everyone exploring the Pantanal with a camera longs for.
Theo Allofs got all these images - thanks to his patience, photographic excellence and his cooperation with Conservation International (CI), opening doors to subjects of some of the most beautiful farms in the area.
Large pictures, great colors and fine printing - impressive, even at a first glance. A closer look reveals that among some 150 pictures there is no weak or even mediocre one! A photographic gourmet-piece and yet, even more: the publisher and the CI writers found an elegant and well balanced way of presenting pictures and heaps of information on such a vast region, its human inhabitants and breathtaking biodiversity. A fine example of a cooperation between nature conservation and nature photography!

Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (Cambridge Latin American Studies)

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Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (Cambridge Latin American Studies)
James Lockhart , and Stuart B. Schwartz
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Renaissance | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Spain | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Similar Items:

Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
Colonial Lives: Documents on Latin American History, 1550-1850
To Be a Slave in Brazil, 1550-1888
The Women of Colonial Latin America (New Approaches to the Americas)

ASIN: 0521299292

Book Description

This book provides a general history of Latin America in the period between the European conquest and the gaining of independence by the Spanish American countries and Brazil (approximately 1492–1825). It is both an introduction for the student at the college level and a provisionally updated synthesis of the quickly changing field for the more experienced reader. The authors’ aim is not only to treat colonial Brazil and colonial Spanish America in a single volume, something rarely done, but also to view early Latin America as one unit with a centre and peripheries, all parts of which were characterized by variants of the same kinds of change, regardless of national and imperial borders. The authors integrate both the older and the newer historical literature, seeing legal, institutional, and political phenomena within a social, economic, and cultural context. They incorporate insights from other disciplines and newer techniques of historical research, but eschew jargon or technical concepts. The approach of the book, with its emphasis on broad social and economic trends across large areas and long time periods, does much to throw light on Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well.

The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon

Average customer rating:

Engaging and Disturbing
A good wife - a good book
American Odyssey
Boring
Fresh Perspective on History

The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon
Robert Whitaker
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America
To the Heart of the Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa
Tropical Nature: Life & Death in the Rain Forests of Central & South America
The Mapmakers: Revised Edition
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

ASIN: 0738208086
Release Date: 2004-04-13

Book Description

An adventure story and a love story set in the heart of the Amazonian jungle.

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, and a third--Jean Godin--nearly died of heartbreak.

At the expedition's end, Jean and his Peruvian wife, Isabel Grames—n, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Isabel's solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of 18th-century Europe spellbound. Her survival-unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration-was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and the power of devotion.

Drawing on the original writings of the French mapmakers, as well as his own experience retracing Isabel's journey, acclaimed writer Robert Whitaker weaves a riveting tale rich in adventure, intrigue, and scientific achievement. Never before told, The Mapmaker's Wife is an epic love story that unfolds against the backdrop of "the greatest expedition the world has ever known."

Customer Reviews:

Engaging and Disturbing.......2007-09-28

I took this book with me when I headed down to Brazil to explore the Amazon Basin. Caveat: reading this book before heading down to Brazil to explore the Amazon is like going to see the movie "Jaws" before you go on your first scuba dive. Disturbing.

Whitaker's description of Isabel Godin-Grameson's horrific ordeal of being lost in the Amazon is mind-boggling, to say the least. It was not the poisonous snakes, the crushing boa constrictors, jaguars, caimans, electric eels or the fierce head shrinking Jabaros that were the worst. It was the thousands of insect bites (giant ants, fire ants, wasps, bees, chiggers, assassin bug, mosquitoes, botflies and their eggs) which turned into open, oozing, festering sores, hundreds of sores on their faces, arms, legs or any exposed flesh. Whitaker's writes. "They had no mosquito nets, no tents - only the clothes they were wearing. It was futile. The insects feasted on them. They would huddle together in the blackness (of night) and hoards of ants would begin their onslaught, crawling over them, under their pants and over every inch of exposed skin. During these awful days, they were plagued with botfly eggs. When the mosquitoes, laden with botfly eggs, feed on the body, the heat from the host causes the eggs to hatch. Immediately, the larvae burrow beneath the skin. The botfly maggot has two anal hooks that anchor firmly in the flesh and there it grows for more than a month . . . They were taking their turn as food for the botflies, even as they were slowly starving to death." Whitaker captures the horror of their situation.

There is much more than Isabel's gripping journey that makes this a great read: the scientific expedition to determine the size and shape of the earth, the descriptions of the culture of 18th century Europe and South America, the tragic treatment of the slaves (African and Indigenous Americans), the dedication, the love and the will to survive. This is a must read for any student of South America, Cartography or Life. Highly recommended.

A good wife - a good book.......2007-05-13

I enjoyed this book so much that I have bought two more copies for friends of mine. Both friends are female. I thought they would be drawn to the romance of the book. But there's adventure and science and history for all to enjoy. There's the comparison narrative or Lewis' and Clark's Voyage of Discovery. It's a good book

American Odyssey.......2007-03-29

This is a great adventure novel, filled with yucky worms,
terrifying terrain, malarian climates, and slithery things
that go slush in the night. It is a great romantic story
of the New World. The collection of illustrations is amazing.
I hope a director picks this book up and makes a movie of it.

Boring.......2007-01-22

Started out okay with the promise of interesting characters, but just got dull and wordy. Didn't finish it. Maybe more enjoyable for a South-American history buff.

Fresh Perspective on History.......2006-11-11

When my friend passed this book on to me, I was expecting a historical novel with dialogue and romance. However, I was pleasantly surprised by a nonfiction story woven from documents, letters, and research. I have always loved maps and been intrigued with how early naturalists figured out details about nature, so this book was a page-turner for me. I couldn't put it down. It was amazing what this team endured to collect data for information that we learn in elementary school today. It also gives insight and context to some of modern day political and social issues.

Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 15501835 (Cambridge Latin American Studies)

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Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 15501835 (Cambridge Latin American Studies)
Stuart B. Schwartz
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru
Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: RECONSIDERING BRAZILIAN SLAVERY (Blacks in the New World)
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Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770
Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil: 1500-1600

ASIN: 0521313996

Book Description

This study examines the history of the sugar economy and the peculiar development of plantation society over a three hundred year period in Bahia, a major sugar plantation zone and an important terminus of the Atlantic slave trade. Drawing on little-used archival sources, plantations accounts, and notarial records, Professor Schwartz has examined through both quantitative and qualitative methods the various groups that made up plantation society. While he devotes much attention to masters and slaves, he views slavery ultimately as part of a larger structure of social and economic relations. The peculiarities of sugar-making and the nature of plantation labour are used throughout the book as keys to an understanding of.roles and relationships in plantation society. A comparative perspective is also employed, so that studies of slavery elsewhere in the Americas inform the analysis, while at many points direct comparisons of the Bahian case with other plantation societies are also made.

Average customer rating:

Brasil Laminated Map (B&B)

Manufacturer: Berndtson & Berndtson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Map

Product Description

Laminated road map in color. Scale 1:4,000,000. Distinguishes 7 types of roads, ranging from Motorway to path. Legend shows places to stay and places of interest, International airports/airfields, archaeological sites, mines, caves, passes, National Parks, nature preserves, waterfalls, museums, monuments, beaches, bus stations, churches, funiculars, golf courses. Includes inset of Brasil Amazon Region (1:8,000,000), Brasilia (1:60,000), Manaus (1:15,000), Downtown Rio de Janeiro (1:15,000), Greater Rio de Janeiro ( (1:175,000), Sao Paulo (1:20,000), Fortaleza (1:15,000), Natal (1:22,000), Recife (1:15,000), Salvador (1:14,000), Curitiba (1:15,000), Florianopolis (1:15,000), Porto Alegre (1:15,000). Legend in 5 languages, including English.

The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia (Monographs on the History and Philosophy of Biology)

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The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia (Monographs on the History and Philosophy of Biology)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Genetics | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

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History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The four contributors to this volume examine the eugenics movements in Germany, France, Brazil, and the Soviet Union, and describe how geneticists and physicians participated in the development of policies concerning the improvement of hereditary qualities in humans. They examine the scientific components of those programs and discuss the involvement of social, religious, and political forces that significantly altered the original scientific goals. The book opens up new and comparative perspectives on the history of eugenics and the social uses of science in general.

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