What does Brazil's lurch to the hard right under Jair Bolsonaro portend for Latin America's
most populous society and how has it come about? Perry Anderson foremost observer of the
Brazilian scene in the English-speaking world offers a matchless account of the country's
recent political upheavals: after the dashed hopes of the Cardoso years the soaring popularity
of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the parliamentary coup d'état against his successor Dilma and
the sweeping election victory of Bolsonaro backed by the Armed Forces and a youthful new
right. Always something of a world unto itself under the Workers' Party Brazil had bucked the
global trend towards a tighter neoliberalism. With its lodestar Lula now behind bars a
weighing up of the PT's legacy and of the contrasting Bolsonaro regime is urgently needed.
