The politicized market economy : alcohol in Brazil's energy strategy /

This is a highly specialized study written for social scientists about Brazil's effort to overcome dependency on imported oil by developing domestic alcohol technology. Barzelay offers a detailed and complex case study of the ways in which political-economic interactions can be conceptualized and modeled. Thus the book will be of interest more to political scientists and economists concerned with theory than to generalists interested in Latin America. It is highly technical and contains mathematical formulas, matrixes, and the like. But at the same time it offers a useful and detailed overview of Brazil's experiment with state-business interaction. The quality of printing is excellent, and the volume is carefully documented. Most appropriate for academic specialists.-R.M. Levine, University of Miami