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Lula: A People's President and the Fight for Brazil's Future
In 2022, left-wing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won an unprecedented third term in Brazil, defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. While the return of the only working-class president in Brazilian history was celebrated by many, Bolsonaro supporters reacted by attacking the legislature, judiciary, and presidential palace. What explains this violent assault on Brazil's democratic institutions? Why did Lula, who first left office with an approval rating of almost 90 percent, provoke such vehement resistance from a supposedly patriotic mob?
Through the intertwined stories of Lula and modern Brazil, historian Andre Pagliarini illuminates the country's journey over the last eighty years. He examines the processes that forged Lula, his Workers' Party and the contours of the country's current predicament to show that the fight for Brazil's future is far from an historical anomaly. It is rooted in a history of democratic advance and backlash familiar to many pluralistic, multiracial democracies worldwide. Given the intense feelings Lula arouses across the political spectrum, his undeniable historical importance, and his re-election at a critical juncture for Brazil and the world, Lula's life and legacy offers a provocative prism through which to analyze the recent past, present, and contested future of Latin America's largest nation.
Through the intertwined stories of Lula and modern Brazil, historian Andre Pagliarini illuminates the country's journey over the last eighty years. He examines the processes that forged Lula, his Workers' Party and the contours of the country's current predicament to show that the fight for Brazil's future is far from an historical anomaly. It is rooted in a history of democratic advance and backlash familiar to many pluralistic, multiracial democracies worldwide. Given the intense feelings Lula arouses across the political spectrum, his undeniable historical importance, and his re-election at a critical juncture for Brazil and the world, Lula's life and legacy offers a provocative prism through which to analyze the recent past, present, and contested future of Latin America's largest nation.
240 pages, Paperback
Published September 17, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 4, 2026
Although the book’s title is “Lula”, this book is actually a more comprehensive, yet succinct, history of Brazil up to the present. By using Lula’s life to illustrate this history, Paglarini has written an excellent and useful little book for all those interested in the country, and especially what’s at stake as it heads into another presidential election, which will certainly be the man’s last. Even though the book is fairly objective, the conclusion it reaches -that Lula is one of the greatest leaders in Latin American, if not global, history - is pretty hard to deny.
June 8, 2026
4,5
This was an excellent read. Despite the title and the shiny portrait of our boy himself on the cover, Andre Pagliarini’s Lula does not deliver a biography, but a comprehensive overview of recent Brazilian history, intertwined with Lula’s responses to political developments throughout the decades as he fulfilled his trajectory from worker to unionist to twice-reelected president. The result is that this feels like two books wrapped in one. Downside: Pagliarini's discussion of policies enacted during the PT's years in office is never super in-depth. All in all, less than 20 pages go out to Lula’s 3 terms combined.
Though obviously sympathetic to the “people’s president”, Pagliarini remains very judicious and balanced towards other politicians, even giving credit to some policies of Lula’s right-wing predecessor FHC. As for Lula himself, this book made me grasp how much of a pragmatist the Brazilian president has often been. Despite the predictable fear-mongering about “communism” from his opponents, Lula ruled as a moderate centre-leftist, even naming a businessman (José Alencar) as his first vice president to lessen enmity from the private sector. His finance ministers have typically been fiscal conservatives. He has refused to default on foreign debts and his administration even cut the pensions of functionaries, after the PT had protested that same proposal in opposition. The takeaway is that Lula is and was, at the end of the day, committed to securing tangible gains for the working class and the poor within Brazil’s existing structure, rather than taking the risks that come with overhauling that structure.
Pagliarini is undoubtedly correct that it’s hard to deny either Lula’s capacities for statesmanship (in stark contrast to most current world leaders) or his unparallelled social achievements. His first two terms lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty and provided them with social housing, healthcare and education, in one of the most socially unequal countries on the planet. Equally admirable is the PT's double commitment to engagement in the BRICS and democracy, showing that the quest for an alternative to the US-led order doesn't have to go along with Maduro-style autocracy.
When judging leftists in the Global South, it’s good to keep in mind they have to grapple with the double adversity of domestic and global elites, which doesn’t make their job easier. Lula’s third term has had to define itself in response to the ravages of Bolsonarism from the outset and even fend off Bolsonaro's coup-mongering, making this term a broad project of (re)democratization rather than one of radicalism (PT strategists themselves spoke of “a coalition to prevent the greater evil”). Lula and Rousseff had both personally gone to prison on flimsy, probably concocted charges after a witch hunt by right-wing judges. That context is why, even if the PT did make great concessions to the status quo, I find it short-sighted to go as far as Alfredo Saad-Filho who simply branded Lula and Rousseff “developmental neoliberals”.
Still, there are moments in the book where one wonders if Pagliarini shouldn't be less starry-eyed about the president. Lula has recently opened the path to a new highway system straight through the Amazon (a privatized one at that!), important to his model's economic backbone and his vision for BRICS, but deeply detrimental to both the environment and indigenous communities. As these sorts of projects stand next to his admistration's commitment to “fiscal responsibility” through caps on investments, and as the PT has become part and parcel of the political establishment, it's fairly clear Lula operates within the limits of a cautious European-style social democracy (if that label is applicable in an imperialized country). Brazil has obviously not seen a better alternative in a century, if ever. And yet around the corner lurks the eternally thorny question for progressives capturing state power: where does healthy pragmatism end and betrayal of your core principles begin?
This was an excellent read. Despite the title and the shiny portrait of our boy himself on the cover, Andre Pagliarini’s Lula does not deliver a biography, but a comprehensive overview of recent Brazilian history, intertwined with Lula’s responses to political developments throughout the decades as he fulfilled his trajectory from worker to unionist to twice-reelected president. The result is that this feels like two books wrapped in one. Downside: Pagliarini's discussion of policies enacted during the PT's years in office is never super in-depth. All in all, less than 20 pages go out to Lula’s 3 terms combined.
Though obviously sympathetic to the “people’s president”, Pagliarini remains very judicious and balanced towards other politicians, even giving credit to some policies of Lula’s right-wing predecessor FHC. As for Lula himself, this book made me grasp how much of a pragmatist the Brazilian president has often been. Despite the predictable fear-mongering about “communism” from his opponents, Lula ruled as a moderate centre-leftist, even naming a businessman (José Alencar) as his first vice president to lessen enmity from the private sector. His finance ministers have typically been fiscal conservatives. He has refused to default on foreign debts and his administration even cut the pensions of functionaries, after the PT had protested that same proposal in opposition. The takeaway is that Lula is and was, at the end of the day, committed to securing tangible gains for the working class and the poor within Brazil’s existing structure, rather than taking the risks that come with overhauling that structure.
Pagliarini is undoubtedly correct that it’s hard to deny either Lula’s capacities for statesmanship (in stark contrast to most current world leaders) or his unparallelled social achievements. His first two terms lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty and provided them with social housing, healthcare and education, in one of the most socially unequal countries on the planet. Equally admirable is the PT's double commitment to engagement in the BRICS and democracy, showing that the quest for an alternative to the US-led order doesn't have to go along with Maduro-style autocracy.
When judging leftists in the Global South, it’s good to keep in mind they have to grapple with the double adversity of domestic and global elites, which doesn’t make their job easier. Lula’s third term has had to define itself in response to the ravages of Bolsonarism from the outset and even fend off Bolsonaro's coup-mongering, making this term a broad project of (re)democratization rather than one of radicalism (PT strategists themselves spoke of “a coalition to prevent the greater evil”). Lula and Rousseff had both personally gone to prison on flimsy, probably concocted charges after a witch hunt by right-wing judges. That context is why, even if the PT did make great concessions to the status quo, I find it short-sighted to go as far as Alfredo Saad-Filho who simply branded Lula and Rousseff “developmental neoliberals”.
Still, there are moments in the book where one wonders if Pagliarini shouldn't be less starry-eyed about the president. Lula has recently opened the path to a new highway system straight through the Amazon (a privatized one at that!), important to his model's economic backbone and his vision for BRICS, but deeply detrimental to both the environment and indigenous communities. As these sorts of projects stand next to his admistration's commitment to “fiscal responsibility” through caps on investments, and as the PT has become part and parcel of the political establishment, it's fairly clear Lula operates within the limits of a cautious European-style social democracy (if that label is applicable in an imperialized country). Brazil has obviously not seen a better alternative in a century, if ever. And yet around the corner lurks the eternally thorny question for progressives capturing state power: where does healthy pragmatism end and betrayal of your core principles begin?
October 26, 2025
As someone who lived in Brazil many decades ago and has maintained an interest in the country and it's progress, I found this book to be an exceptionally good overview of the country's political history for the past century. While titled to reflect its emphasis on the person and personality of Brazil's current president, it nevertheless presents a simultaneously concise and comprehensive look at the people and forces that have shaped Brazil and it's politics since the early part of the 20th century.
Lula is the single most prominent figure in contemporary Brazilian politics since emerging as a labor leader in the late 1970s. The son of illiterate parents, and with little formal education himself, there are a few like him who rose to prominence in other countries, and there is no comparable figure in the United States in the past 100 years. A man who is truly dedicated to representing all the citizens of Brazil in it's internal politics as well as representing his country's interests in international relations, Lula is intelligent and articulate, and is the kind of leader the United States lacks at this point in history.
I highly recommend this book, even for those who have no connection to Brazil.
Lula is the single most prominent figure in contemporary Brazilian politics since emerging as a labor leader in the late 1970s. The son of illiterate parents, and with little formal education himself, there are a few like him who rose to prominence in other countries, and there is no comparable figure in the United States in the past 100 years. A man who is truly dedicated to representing all the citizens of Brazil in it's internal politics as well as representing his country's interests in international relations, Lula is intelligent and articulate, and is the kind of leader the United States lacks at this point in history.
I highly recommend this book, even for those who have no connection to Brazil.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews