Quest for Autonomy, The

Andrew Hurrell’s thesis on Brazilian foreign policy, defended at Oxford, in 1986, allies the finesse of a creative political scientist and the skill of an accomplished historian as it analyses relations with the US while Brazil was under the military regime. His conclusions deserve to be regarded as a reference to all balanced inquiries into the central goals of Brazilian foreign policy, as Gelson Fonseca Jr points out in an elegant Foreword that shows how Hurrell combined his aptitude as a theorist and a sharp eye for international dynamics to reach a diagnosis that still provides a key to understanding the complexities of the diplomatic game.