Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Until the Storm Passes: Politicians, Democracy, and the Demise of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship
ISBN: 9780520388369
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of California Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: History ; Latin American Studies ; Political Science;

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org .



Until the Storm Passes reveals how Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship contributed to its own demise by alienating the civilian political elites who initially helped bring it to power. Based on exhaustive research conducted in nearly twenty archives in five countries, as well as on oral histories with surviving politicians from the period, this book tells the surprising story of how the alternatingly self-interested and heroic resistance of the political class contributed decisively to Brazil's democratization. As they gradually turned against military rule, politicians began to embrace a political role for the masses that most of them would never have accepted in 1964, thus setting the stage for the breathtaking expansion of democracy that Brazil enjoyed over the next three decades.

Bryan Pitts is a historian and Assistant Director of the Latin American Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.