Herbert S. Klein and Francisco Vidal Luna present a sweeping narrative of social change in Brazil that documents its transition from a predominantly rural and illiterate society in 1950, to an overwhelmingly urban, modern, and literate society in the twenty-first century. Tracing this radical evolution reveals how industrialization created a new labor force, how demographic shifts reorganized the family and social attitudes, and how urban life emerged in what is now one of the most important industrial economies in the world. A paradigm for modern social histories, the book also examines changes in social stratification and mobility, the decline of regional disparities, education, social welfare, race, and gender. By analyzing Brazil's unprecedented political, economic, and social changes in the late twentieth and twenty-first century, the authors address an under-explored area in current scholarship and offer an invaluable resource for scholars of Latin American and Brazil.

'Modern Brazil: A Social History is a well succeeded attempt to document and fully explain the rapid transformation of Brazilian society during the last 75 years. The outstanding research experience of Klein and Luna guarantees precise analyses about the demographic, economic, social and institutional changes of Brazilian society. This book gives to the reader a robust historical perspective which is very useful to understand the roots of Brazil´s present problems.' José Pastore, University of São Paulo
'For the past 15 years, [Herbert S. Klein] and [Francisco Vidal Luna] have co-written a series of books dealing with Brazil's economic and social history; this is the latest in that group. The book opens with an excellent discussion of the fundamentals of Brazilian economic and social reality in the 1950s and proceeds to explore the many transformations the nation has undergone since then … With a surprisingly upbeat tone, they utilize dozens of graphs and tables to convincingly argue their points … Recommended.' R. M. Delson, Choice

Herbert S. Klein is Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University and Research Fellow and Latin American Curator at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California. Francisco Vidal Luna is Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Economics and Administration (FEA) at the Universidade de São Paulo.