Volkswagen in the Amazon: The Tragedy of Global Development in Modern Brazil (Global and International History)

Antoine Acker

ISBN 10: 1107197422 / ISBN 13: 9781107197428

Published by Cambridge University Press 2017-09-21, 2017

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-GRD-9781107197428

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Volkswagen in the Amazon: The Tragedy of Global Development in Modern Brazil (Global and International History)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press 2017-09-21
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1107197422
• ISBN 13: 9781107197428
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

From 1973 to 1987, Volkswagen's (VW) 140,000 hectare 'pioneer' cattle ranch on the Amazon frontier laid bare the limits of capitalist development. These limits were not only economic, with the core management of a multinational company engaged in the 'integration' of an extreme world periphery, but they were also legal and ethical, with the involvement of indentured labor and massive forest burning. Its physical limits were exposed by an unpredictable ecosystem refusing to submit to VW's technological arsenal. Antoine Acker reveals how the VW ranch, a major project supported by the Brazilian military dictatorship, was planned, negotiated, and eventually undone by the intervention of internationally connected actors and events.

About the Author

Antoine Acker earned his Ph.D. at the European University Institute, Florence and has extensively researched and taught in seven different countries on a broad range of topics including environmental and Brazilian history, German culture and language, as well as political sciences. He was a lecturer at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris (2013–2014), at the Université de La Rochelle, France (2014–2015) and a guest scholar at Universität Bielefeld, Germany, Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands and Universität Bern, Switzerland (2015–2016). He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy in affiliation with the Marie Curie Excellence Fellowships program co-funded by the European Commission.