The past is never dead. It's not even past
The story of guaraná, the key ingredient of Brazil’s “national” soda and the centerpiece of a multi-billion dollar industry, may start here: “In the ancestral village there lived a virtuous couple who had a young son. A performer of wonders, the boy, by the age of six, was revered by many. Like an angel of peace, […]
During World War II, the governments of Brazil and the United States made an unprecedented level of joint investment in the economy and infrastructure of the Amazon region. The dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1937-45) trumpeted the colonization and development of the Amazon (christened the “March to the West”) as a nationalist imperative to defend a sparsely settled frontier covering some sixty percent of Brazilian territory.
It’s no coincidence that Hollywood has a thing for Rio de Janeiro. The city’s breathtaking landscape enlivens the most uninspired camerawork. Its pulsating musical rhythms spice up any soundtrack. Rio’s favelas (slums), with their arresting squalor, stoke movie-goers’ fears and fantasies