Death in the Northeast

New York. 1966. October 1966. Random House. 1st Printing. Underlining, Otherwise Very Good in Dustjacket. 207 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Adelson and Eichinger. keywords: Latin America Brazil History Sociology. DESCRIPTION - The northeast of Brazil is a disaster area. its twenty-three million people live in the destitute remnants of a feudal society: In some sections the average annual income is fifty dollars; three quarters of its people arc illiterate, and half of them die before the age of thirty. Moreover, the interior is plagued by long and catastrophic droughts and famines. JosuE de Castro, a son of the Northeast, warns that the region ‘has great as explosive potential as the Congo, South Africa, India or Vietnam,' and in this he is backed up by Tad Szulc, who stated flatly in The New York Times that ‘the Northeast will go Communist and have a situation ten times worse than Cuba if something is not done.' Dr. Castro contends and demonstrates that the tragedy of this area does not stem mainly from climate and soil, but was guaranteed by the inherent defects of the merciless social and economic system which was established by its feudalist Portuguese colonizers and is remarkably little changed. He recounts the sad history of this region and draws melancholy conclusions about the future of strife, revolution and f)ohtical violence, unless peaceful hut complete revolution is achieved. The Alliance for Progress is also indicted for its inability to bring ai)out reform here, and elsewhere in South America, and for even tending to support, in certain instances, the hegemony of tile entrenched oligarchy. All attempts to aid the people of the Northeast, including the Alliance, have ended, Dr. Castro remarks, in ‘nostalgia and regret.' This region stands for all the undiluted misery of destitution and all the conditions of injustice that have held down vast numbers of the world's population If Americans are to understand tile extent and the complexities of the underdeveloped world, and the intensity of its peoples' needs, they must face all the facts about them. This book makes these facts unmistakably, and unforgettably, clear. inventory #15158 Underlining, Otherwise Very Good in Dustjacket.…