A fabled country with a reputation for danger, romance and intrigue, Brazil has transformed itself in the past decade. It has achieved energy independence and, with the discovery of the largest oil field in the last century, will become a major supplier of crude oil. With its successful bid for the 2016 Olympics, it is becoming clear that Brazil is poised to takes its place on the world stage. But Brazil continues to be a country fraught with contradictions, where drug-controlled favelas sit side by side the world’s highest standard of living, where plastic surgery is commonplace. Myths about Brazil’s sex culture abound and yet 75% of the population is devout Roman Catholic. Custodians of the Amazon rainforest, Brazil answers to the rest of the world for preserving the planet’s most precious resource. And though the president, Lula da Silva, is a former Marxist, he has built a free market powerhouse that is now the world’s tenth largest economy, and growing fast. Brazil on the Rise, written by the go-to journalist on Brazil, intimately portrays a country of contradictions, a country of passion and above all a country of immense power.