The accidental president of Brazil: a memoir

Description

Fernando Henrique Cardoso received a phone call in the middle of the night asking him to be the new Finance Minister of Brazil. As he put the phone down and stared into the darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministers with the ferocity of an Amazon piranha. This was just one of the turns in a largely unscripted and sometimes unwanted political career. In exile during the harshest period of the junta that ruled Brazil for twenty years, Cardoso started his political life with a tentative run for the Federal Senate in 1978. Within fifteen years, and despite himself, this former sociologist was running the country. And what a country! Brazil, it is often said, is on the edge of modernity, striding with one foot in mid-air towards the future, the other still rooted deep in a traditional past. It is a land of sophisticated music and brutal gold-digging, of the next global superpower and the last old-time coffee plantations. It is gloriously ungovernable, irrepressibly attractive, and home to the family, friends and extraordinary life of Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This is his story and his love song to his country.;Foreword by President Bill Clinton; Chapter 1 The Family Business; Chapter 2 The Emperor and the General; Chapter 3 All Bubbles Must Burst; Chapter 4 A Recipe for a Coup; Chapter 5 The Bitter Caviar of Exile; Chapter 6 Jeithinho; Chapter 7 Change, Now!; Chapter 8 Kings of the Jungle; Chapter 9 A Real President; Chapter 10 Remember Everything I Wrote; Chapter 11 The Samba Effect; Chapter 12 The Land of the Future; Epilogue; Acknowledgments/Photo Credits; Index; Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Foreword by President Bill Clinton Chapter 1 The Family Business Chapter 2 The Emperor and the General Chapter 3 All Bubbles Must Burst Chapter 4 A Recipe for a Coup Chapter 5 The Bitter Caviar of Exile Chapter 6 Jeithinho Chapter 7 Change, Now! Chapter 8 Kings of the Jungle Chapter 9 A Real President Chapter 10 Remember Everything I Wrote Chapter 11 The Samba Effect Chapter 12 The Land of the Future Epilogue Acknowledgments/Photo Credits Index Fernando Henrique Cardoso.