Brazil: The Once and Future Country is the most comprehensive introduction to Brazil available in English. In his quest to understand the largest country in Latin America, Eakin reveals Brazil to be a land of the marvelous and the mystical, the sublime and the tragic. A country that encompasses half of the land of South America and one-third of all Latin Americans, Brazil is a nation defined by paradoxes: immense wealth surrounded by widespread poverty, a modern industrial infrastructure alongside an outmoded agricultural system, a largely white South and a Northeastern coast that is overwhelmingly of African descent. Eakin chronicles Brazil's development from its origins in the sixteenth century, when it was created as a by-product of European imperial expansion, to the present day. History, religion, society, culture, politics, and economy are mixed together to make Brazil: The Once and Future Country a fascinating piece of work.