Brazil has in recent years greatly expanded and diversified its international activities. Owing to its continental expanse (fifth country in the world in terms of area), its population of 110 million (nipping Japan for sixth place among the nations of this globe), its rapidly growing economy (a GNP of U.S. $80 billions, challenging India for tenth place), and its expanding foreign trade, Brazil is increasingly recognized as a serious aspirant for major power status. Much of this change has been relatively sudden, with diplomatic relations established with the Chinese Peoples Republic only in August 1974, and a multi-billion dollar nuclear energy pact with the German Federal Republic signed as recently as June 1975. Similarly, the significant tilting of Brazilian policy in the Middle East toward the Arab countries dates only to the impact of the international oil crisis in 1974.
In general, academic literature has lagged rather badly behind these developments, a fact which makes Dr. Selchers book very timely indeed. A thoroughly researched and solidly documented study, it surveys the broadening and deepening of Brazilian concern with Africa and Asia in the post-World War II period. The author demonstrates a firm grasp of major trends in Brazil’s foreign policy, and generally manages to keep the central focus of his research in appropriate perspective by quantitative comparisons to Brazil’s relations with other regions of higher foreign policy priority (specifically the United States, the rest of Latin America, and Western Europe). Following a concise and coherent summation of basic trends in Brazilian foreign policy up through 1972, Selcher embarks on an essentially qualitative discussion of the roots of Brazilian interest in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (pp. 48-96). This is complemented by a largely quantitative transactions analysis which shows a steady rise since 1956 of Brazilian diplomatic activity in these regions relative to areas of traditional interest. Brief case studies of Brazil’s relations with Japan, Israel, and India furnish relief from the heavy quantitative analysis of this central part of Selcher’s study (pp. 130-142). He also provides a sensitive treatment of Brazil’s policy toward Portugal, South Africa, and Rhodesia in relation to the fundamental Afro-Asian effort to isolate these bastions of white supremacy. This is supplemented by a basically sound discussion of economic issues including good case studies on coffee and cocoa (pp. 208-222). All this data and interpretation buttress a conclusion that: “Brazilian economic and political interests converge with and diverge from those upon which the Afro-Asian bloc has struck a consensus in much more subtle and complicated ways than the mere grouping of Brazil with Afro-Asia as a ‘developing,’ ‘Southern,’ or ‘Third World’ state would lead one to assume.” (p. 229).
Two flaws detract from the usefulness of this commendable work: lack of any index and failure to carry much of the data beyond 1968 (the period of the author’s field research in Brazil). In most respects this data would strengthen the author’s argument and accentuate trends which he has discerned. For example, even 1972 or 1973 figures on distribution of Brazilian diplomatic personnel by region show a continuation of the tendencies visible in Table 4 (p. 101). Given the tremendous expansion of Brazil’s foreign trade (exports in 1974 were fully double those of 1972) in recent years, the cut-off date of 1967 or 1968 for a very substantial proportion of his time series is to be regretted. Yet to say that a valuable book could have been even more valuable should not deter any potential readers, unless they are seeking a convenient source of current facts and figures rather than a comprehensive and balanced treatment of an increasingly important facet of Brazil’s foreign policy.
