The book under review was a dissertation. Its structure is as follows: (1) a summary of Brazilian foreign policy starting with the empire, through the shift of the diplomatic axis of Brazil from Europe to the United States under Rio Branco, to the governments of Quadros and Goulart; (2) The Escola Superior de Guerra (ESG) and the doctrine of national security, which formed the theoretical framework for the foreign policy of Brazilian military governments since 1964; (3) an outline of the changes in Brazilian foreign policy between 1964 and 1978; (4) a theoretical excursion on Brazilian “(sub-)imperialism”; (5) Brazil’s relations with Latin America since the end of the 1960s.
The book does not live up to its title. To begin with, it contains no systematic treatment of the foreign policy of Brazil between 1964 and 1978. A systematic treatment means to this reviewer that all relevant aspects of the foreign policy of Brazil are dealt with, including: Brazil and Latin America; the United States; Africa and Asia; the socialist countries; the United Nations; the OAS; the nonaligned movement; and so on. As the subtitle reveals, the book purports to outline Brazilian foreign policy. Nevertheless, for everyone interested in this topic, the book is a source of not only well-founded assessments, but also of a body of interesting details on all aspects of Brazilian policy between 1964 and 1978. The author visited Brazil for two lengthy periods and obviously immersed himself in large numbers of Brazilian books, journals, and papers. Reading his book, one gets the impression that one of the author’s goals was to make a German reader familiar with results of Brazilian research, and that is important.
A forty-page bibliography shows that the author is a person of wide reading. It is, however, to say the least, a bit strange to find in the bibliography the well-known standard titles of Skidmore, Stepan, and Fiechter not in their original languages, but in Brazilian editions. Apart from that, Wayne A. Selcher’s second book on Brazilian foreign policy (1978) and some of his articles escaped the attention of the author. Also striking are the rather few times the author refers to his “predecessor,” W. Grabendorff.
To sum up, the book under review is, despite the reservations, well worth reading.
