Lula of Brazil: The Story so Far (review)

“Lula, the story so far . . . .” Indeed, this is a history that is a story; and one, moreover, in medias res. It is a bildungsroman of self-education, of rising by one’s bootstraps to the Brazilian presidency by a factory laborer. It is a roman à clef pursuing the obscure causes and remote factors for such a rise and such a presidency. The subtitle emphasizes “so far” because the second of Lula’s (Luiz Inácio da Silva, 1945-) four-year terms (first: 2003–2007; second: 2007–2011) was in progress at the time of publication. Anomalous and urgent is the tale. Possessing an easy affability essential to politicians, Lula bears a low-key demeanor refreshingly alien to such psyches. Opposite any of the varied elites who have occupied the Brazilian presidency, he consummates a dividing but not divisive watershed role in political history. He quickens the curiosity of all interested in, intrigued by, Brazil.

This book responds with the immediacy of journalism and the weight of evolving history. A future scholar will produce a detailed and penetrating tome on the completed Lula presidency. It will frame it in relation to the frenzied development of the Kubitschek years, the frantic politics of the Vargas regimes, and the rhythmic rise and fall of Pedro II’s reign. Richard Bourne (London University), however, satisfies an immediate curiosity. Tocqueville fathomed the serpentine novelties of Jacksonian America for an awaiting readership among Old World nobility.

Recent books in English have progressively addressed interest in the Lula government. The Party without Bosses: Lessons on Anti-capitalism from Félix Guattari and Luis Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva (2003), Lula and the Workers’ Party in Brazil (2003), and Radicals in Power: The Workers’ Party (PT) and Experiments in Urban Democracy in Brazil (2009) examine over an inclusive span of the Lula government: its antipathy and moderation in relation to market capitalism; the plotting, structuring, and variations of participatory government; and the evolving, tempered, yet often conflicted roles of Lula and the Workers’ Party. Democratic Brazil Revisited (2008), whose authors are noted for their substantive, quantitative appraisals of Brazilian politics, offer a rare re-examination, updating their book (2000) on democratic politics in Brazil during the years immediately preceding the Lula government. Brazil under Lula: Economy, Politics, and Society under the Worker-president (2009), offers the first scholarly examination of the Lula administration by numerous international specialists across a gamut of issues, observing the administration’s roles as both a vanguard and a moderator. The Throes of Democracy: Brazil since 1989 (2008) presents a skilled, breathtaking sweep of Brazil’s cultural, political, and economic history over the past two decades.

Bourne’s work is most rewarding for its singular focus on the formative up-bringing of Lula, in such contrast to any previous occupant of the Alvorada (or Catete) Palace. Primarily the book covers Lula’s years as president; but quite valuably it provides a rare, insightful overview, with photographs, of his early years. Author of a work on Getúlio Vargas, Bourne does not proffer readers a Lula hagiography but narrates a story as riveting as those of Abraham Lincoln and Benito Juárez. Consider the significance: One must penetrate into the nineteenth century for US and Mexican precedents to a contemporary Brazilian example of elevation from destitute poverty to presidential power. So delinquent an example testifies to the enduring burden of the largest, longest-lived plantation slavocracy in history.

Born in the upland interior, near Garanhuns, Pernambuco, Lula survived an impoverished childhood that included seven siblings. The family joined the mid twentieth-century migration of economic refugees from the Northeast, trekking in open-back trucks in week-long journeys for menial jobs in the industrial Southeast. Settling in São Paulo state, Lula obtained a traineeship in metalworking. He entered a work force for which the governing military regime (1964–1985) had formulated a development agenda predicated on low wages. As that regime foundered in runaway inflation, it confronted massive, repressed popular opposition...