During the winter season of July 2005 (in the Southern Hemisphere), we traveled to different parts of Brazil to learn about its complex and diverse cultural geography. Some reasons for studying and visiting Brazil:

1. fifth largest country (8.5 million km²) and physically diverse;
2. fourth largest democracy (184 million);
3. ninth largest economy but only 42nd per capita;
4. third most unequal country (by family income);
5. low birth rate (105th out of 180 countries), especially for a Third World Country, and an effective set of anti-AIDS policies;
6. Afro-Brazilian culture of religion, clothing, food, music, and martial arts; and
7. landless movement.

Click on each of the red-outlined cities on the left-hand map.

|   Impressions of Brazil.   |    Look at some air photos.   |  

Suggested readings by Jorge Amado, Brazil's most best-known novelist:
1) The Gold Harvest: cacao farming in hinterlands of Ilheus, Bahia, which exported 98 percent of Brazil's cacao exports; deals with the complexity of race and class, and locals and foreigners.
2) Jubiaba: life of a mulatto who lives on the margins of society in Salvador, Bahia, during the 1930s. African culture plays an important role, particularly the Afro-Brazil religion of candomble in which African gods and Roman Catholic saints are merged: especially in chapter 7, "Macumba".
3) Dona Flora and Her Two Husbands: book turned into a film based in Salvador.
4) Mike Davis, Planet of Slums. Verso, 2006: the importance of "shanty towns and slum dwellers" around the world.

Ingolf Vogeler took over 900 photos on this trip, 883 are shown here, and created these web pages on 15 July 2005, last revised on 10 March 2011.