Cullman Center Institute for Teachers: A Primer on Brazil: Global Giant with Larry Rohter

A Primer on Brazil: Global Giant with Larry Rohter

When the 2016 Summer Olympics were awarded to Rio de Janeiro late in 2009, Brazil was enjoying a decade-long economic boom and the country seemed poised for a leap to global power status. But when the games open next August 6, the mood in Rio is sure to be a sour one. Since the end of 2014, Brazil has been mired in the worst corruption scandal in its history, with its political institutions and leaders discredited, and the economy has shifted into reverse and is actually shrinking. What went wrong? And what makes this tropical giant tick? Even with all its problems, Brazil boasts the world’s seventh largest economy, a vibrant culture and a racially and ethnically diverse population living in a resource-rich territory larger than the continental United States. What needs to be done to get the country back on track, if not for the Olympics, then in the years that follow? Those are the topics to be discussed in this timely seminar.

Larry Rohter has spent thirty years as a foreign correspondent and cultural reporter for The New York Times. Before that he reported from Latin America and Asia as a correspondent and critic for Newsweek, The Washington Post, the Sunday Times of London and Rede Globo of Brazil. He is the author of two books about Brazil, one in Portuguese and one in English: Deu no New York Times and Brazil on the Rise: The Story of a Country Transformed. At the Cullman Center he is working on a biography of the Brazilian explorer, statesman, scientist, philosopher, and environmentalist General Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon.

This seminar is not open to the public. It is only for teachers who have applied and been accepted into the class.