The central portion of this book is a well-researched account of attempts to legislate land reform in Brazil between 1962 and 1965. The sources utilized include newspaper articles, congressional debates, and interviews with dozens of unidentified participants. Chapter 3 tracks various land-reform proposals through the executive branch, culminating with Castello Branco’s 1965 promulgation of the Land Statute. This was a moderate law that differed little from that sought by João Goulart unsuccessfully. Cehelsky is ambiguous about the motives of both presidents, but leaves the impression that Castello was more reform-minded. Chapters 4 and 5 then retrace the same ground (with some repetition), looking at how the congressional system largely failed to deal with land reform. New information on congressional politics is generated by vote tallies and content analysis of speeches on land reform. The results are inconclusive, suggesting that ideology, partisanship, opportunism, and presidential leadership all played a part. The author missed a good chance to use multivariate analysis here. In the end, only Castello Branco’s dogged commitment achieved a legislative victory, at that an empty one since his successors have not carried out the law.
The book will interest Brazilian specialists and perhaps aid comparative studies in the “failure-of-reform” genre. The meat is sandwiched between slabs of indigestible “theory and analysis,” however, which makes it most unpalatable. The opening chapters will dismay the historian, with such errors as independence in 1821, a fifteen-year Vargas dictatorship, a constitution in 1945, and a Quadros resignation in 1962. Even social scientists will balk at a theoretical recipe that incorporates virtually every “ism” and “ist” of the last twenty years. Finally, all readers will be irritated by a text spiced with too many misspellings, typos, grammatical and punctuation errors, and inappropriate constructions.
