In 'Brazil', Riordan Roett - an eminent scholar of Brazil and Latin America - provides a rich overview of the country, covering Brazilian society, politics, culture and the economy. The book begins with a series of chapters on Brazilian history, beginning with the pre-colonial period and moving on, in succession, to the long era of Portuguese rule, the birth of independent Brazil, the emergence of modern Brazil in the 1930s, the era of the dictators, and - finally - to the democratic regime that came into being in the 1980s. Throughout the book, Roett will focus sharply on the fault lines - racial, economic, political and cultural - that have plagued Brazil from its beginnings to this day.