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"Brazil: Dilemmas and Challenges" book

Read the following "Introduction", written by Jacques Marcovitch, of the book “Brazil: Dilemmas and Challenges”. Marcovitch is also the author of one of the essays and was the President of USP at the time the book was published.

Introduction

This dossier, published by the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Advanced Studies, brings to life an unexpurgated picture of Brazil today. No polishing was attempted to assuage our predicament, as professional optimists tend to do, nor was there any purposely somber retouching to make a worrisome reality gloomier than it already is. The Brazil of these pages is the real Brazil, as seen by a group of
scholars of varied dispositions, united by the theme that has always oriented their intellectual concerns.

We call the attention of foreign readers to the fact that the essays gathered here were written by scientists, thinkers from various currents, humanists, government ministers and opposition leaders. The dossier as a whole reflects a plural view of Brazilian society, and thus engenders distinct levels of interpretation. However, as we are not dealing with dogmatic or self-enclosed analyses, the reader may see them as parts of a dialogue. A forthright and sometimes harsh dialogue, to be sure, but not in the least clouded by the political blindness into which nations often plunge in times of crisis.

The Brazilian crisis, if we may be allowed to particularize crises in times of globalization, finds in this University of São Paulo publication a reading whereby the three periods of our national history intermingle to trace courses and perspectives. Essentially an academic endeavor, this dossier excludes topical or
emergency discussions, however important, and focuses instead on the overall picture and its complex variables. At no moment, however, does it incline towardsan exercise of thought that shirks the societal issues that demand a permanently engaged reflection on the part of the university.

Impossible to say which of these 29 essays deals more incisively with its specific subject. Homogeneous from a qualitative point of view, the work shows how these Brazilian scholars, oftentimes with conflicting opinions, pointedly composed a dense and truthful portrait of our dilemmas and challenges.

Jacques Marcovitch
President, University of São Paulo
June 2001