The political stability of Brazil has always relied heavily on the abundance of natural resources to be found in the Amazon rainforest, and has been severely tested in eras of colonization, periods of boom-and-bust, world wars, and civil wars.
Populations migrated from Asia to the Americas when sea levels were lowered by 100 meters due to the expanding glaciers and ice sheets of the last ice age, and dry land linked Alaska to Siberia (Lamb 112). One group, the Incans, settled along the Andes. Since the only beast of burden, the llama, was too small to carry a man, they lived mostly sedentary lives. They also stratified their populations on the sides of the Andes to take advantage of the different capacities of the land (growing cotton at sea level, maize on the piedmont, and potatoes in the highlands). For people living in the Amazon basin, the climate induced them to be even less materialistic. Belongings left in a thatch-and-pole hut by semi-nomadic people would be destroyed through a combination of humidity and insects by the time the roamers returned to the settlement (Place 22). The Indians also developed a social structure in which each individual Indian would be responsible for possessing mentally all the necessary information for making a living in a tropical rainforest: hunting practices, habits of particular game animals, rituals, food manufacture, and crop varieties (Roosevelt 23).
After the arrival of the Europeans, indigenous peoples died from new diseases like smallpox, measles, and typhus in what was eventually called the “largest demographic collapse in history” (Webb). While the indigenous populations were struggling to survive, European colonizers were moving in with horses, dogs, cattle, chickens, and slav...
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Place, Susan E., ed. Tropical Rainforests: Latin American Nature and Society in Transition. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1993.
Roosevelt, Anna. Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.
“Rubber: War.” Pulse of the Planet. National Science Foundation. Program #2233, September 2000. http://www.pulseplanet.com/archive/Sep00/2233.html. Accessed 20 November 2004.
“Rubber: Boom.” Pulse of the Planet. National Science Foundation. Program #2232, September 2000. http://www.pulseplanet.com/archive/Sep00/2232.html. Accessed 20 November 2004.
Steffen, Alex. “Fome Zero.” WorldChanging: Another World is Here. 4 December 2003. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000168.html. Accessed 20 November 2004.
Webb, James. Lecture. Colby College. 7 March 2004.
Wright, David, Heather LaRocca, and Grant DeJongh. "Global Problems." The Amazonian Rainforest: Forest to Farmland? The University of Michigan, 2007. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Moeller, Karla (2013, July 24). Revealing the Rainforest. ASU - Ask A Biologist. Retrieved November 29, 2013 from http://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/rainforest
The two nation-states of Brazil and Germany differ in many ways: economically, politically and socially. Germany's powerful economy, rich and wealthy society, and efficient government have put the country as a leader in the international scene. On the other hand, Brazil is still yet to emerge as a true democracy and is faced with a lot of problems. This paper is focused on political differences that both of the states have.
S. Olson, James. The Indians of Central and South America: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1991.
The lives of Native Americans from as early as 800 B.C.E. in present-day Mexico and Central America depended heavily on the knowledge and technology passed down from previous tribes. The impact this has had on developing Mesoamerican societies can be seen in records of their history. Having the way of life of a tribe documented can help prove the significance of these accomplishments.
In the 1500s Pedro Alvares Cabral landed on Brazil, previously a inhabited by tribal nations, and claimed the land in the name of Portugal. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until September 7, 1822 when it declared its independence becoming the Empire of Brazil making the nation a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. In early 1964, a Military junta took control of the nation until it fell in 1985 further changing the structure of the nation, and finally in 1988 a formal constitution was created enacting 26 states encompassing its boarders. Throughout the history of Brazil, the nation was never able to fully immerse itself in the international market and expand its economy, until today. Latin America has not had the best of luck when it comes to economic development and many nations in Latin America have similar issues when it comes to economic and societal development, and many of these issues are cause by the same things. For example, before the military coup in 1964 Brazil was in massive amounts of debt to international partners, however, during the military rule the payment of this debt was halted so the trust and economic backing of countries stopped with the payments. Many plans have been enacted after the fall of the military control to reverse the economic downfall that occurred in the country and continent in the 20th century and especially in the 1980s, the lost decade. In Brazil alone, there have been at least seven economic plans to reverse the economic hardships of the country, from the Cruzado Plan to the Real Plan, none seemed to work. However, in the past decade the Brazilian economy has seen an amazing increase and the condition of life of the people in the nation has increased with it. The quest...
Filh, Alfredo Saad. "Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Development Policy in Brazil." DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY June 2010: 1-28.
The great explorations and subsequent migrations of Europeans to the Americas in the 15th-18th centuries opened up those entire continents to the fatal impact of the infectious diseases of Europe. European conquests owed a good deal of their success to the effects of disease on the indigenous peoples, especially smallpox in the Americas. Before Spanish conquest of the New World, there was no sickness or great health related issues that Natives were forced to face. That all changed, however, when European explorers, Spanish conquistadors in particular, unknowingly brought the deadly disease of smallpox into Latin America. A recollection of days before the Spanish by an Indian of the Yucatan from the book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel shows just how disease free natives were before the Spanish arrival: “There was then no sickness; they had no aching bones; they had then no high fever; they had then no smallpox; they had then no burning chest; they had then no abdominal pain; they had then no consumption; they had then no headache. At that time the course of humanity was orderly. The foreigners made it otherwise when they arrived here.” Then, after the Spanish came to the New World and spread smallpox to the natives, over 95% of them were killed. The Taino population of Hispaniola that was once estimated to be as large as 8 million went virtually extinct. Central Mexico’s population went from 15 million in 1519 to 1.5 million a century later. ...
The European colonization of North America changed the indigenous population’s way of life and their culture. They caught illnesses they were not immune too, like chickenpox and measles. They did not have any
National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. (2004, August 11). Environmental Roadmapping Initiative. Retrieved October 14, 2011, from Plastics Impacts, Risks and Regulations: http://ecm.ncms.org/ERI/new/IRRPlastics.htm
People have been living in the Americas for thousands of years. Only fairly recently, the past few hundred years, have foreigners begun to arrive and drastically disrupt the way of life of the aboriginal population. The situation has become so severe that a population that was one believed to be numbered in the millions, was at one point reduced to as few as 220,000 in 1910, and entire tribes have been either irretrievably warped or have disappeared altogether. While Native American Indians have almost completely recovered population-wise, they will never catch up to the rest of the world, and their culture can never fully recuperate. At the time the United States was settled by Europeans, it was abundantly populated by dozens of separate nations with diverse civilizations and cultures. Like other colonized regions, the indigenous people suffered first from the introduction of diseases that were common in the regions that the settlers were from, to which the Indians had no immunity. It is believed that millions died of smallpox, measles, whooping cough, and influenza. Some estimate that such epidemics were responsible for more than 80 million deaths during the early colonial period alone. Although The Indians numbers were never accurately recorded (estimates have ranged from in the low millions to as much as around a hundred million) it is certain that they are far from a complete recovery. For nearly 300 years the population of Native Americans had been declining, since shortly after Columbus arrived in the Western Hemisphere to a while after the civil war. But starting in the beginning of the 20th century the United States census bureau has reported an almost continuous increases in native populations (with some exceptions, notably an influenza epidemic that occurred in 1918). From the 1980’s to the 1990’s there is reported a growth of almost 500,000; from 1,478,523 in 1980 to 1,937,391 in 1990. Despite these promising statistics the population of Native Americans is only a small fraction (0.8 percent) of the hundreds of millions of other inhabitants in the United States. Despite their initial confusion to their situation after the arrival of Europeans, the Native Americans did not take their disenfranchisement from their own land lying down. Native Americans have a long history of "fighting back" against invaders encroaching on the land that ...
Larry Rohter was a journalist in Brazil for 14 years and from his experiences he offers in this book some unique insights into Brazilian history, politics, culture and more. In 10 topical chapters Rohter’s easy-to-read book provides a look at Brazilian history and the extraordinary changes the country has undergone -- and is still undergoing. Rother covers many significant issues, but several stand out more than others. Namely: the country’s history, culture, politics, and finally its economy/natural wealth.
Spreading along seventy thousand square miles in the Amazon forest, the Yanomami tribe resides and maintains their culture without intrusion. Their culture has evolved just like that of a modern society, but their way of life is very different. The tribe chooses to live in communal housing; large round dwellings called shaponos. The shaponos are made out of wood and are completely built by the tribe’s people (1). Fam...
Brazil is both the fifth largest country in the world based off of land size and population (World Factbook). Brazil has used this demographic as a strength in its efforts to find some sort of stability in a very unstable economic climate. Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America the world's eighth largest economy at market exchange rates and the and 10 in purchasing power parity (PPP) or GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (World Fact Book). There are many factors to the development of the Brazilian economy, each having an impact, but the development is not complete.
Fearnside, Philip M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: History, Rates, and Consequences." Conservation Biology 19.3 (2005): 680-688. Print.