Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an attempt to analyze the political, economic, and social transformations that Brazil has undergone from 1930 to 1983. It examines import-substitution industrialization and analyzes social changes and the emergence of new classes: the industrial bourgeoisie, the urban proletariat, and, mainly, the new salaried middle class. The book presents an analysis made in 1963 concerning the populist pact and the new historical facts that were to determine its collapse, also provides the political crisis of the first years of the 1960s and the Revolution of 1964. It also examines this crisis in both economic and political terms, and discusses the alternatives open to Brazil after the political consolidation of industrial capitalism starting with the revolution of 1964. The book explains the long process of transition toward democracy, which began in 1974 and is in progress.