978-1-4222-3341-2

If there is one iconic image of a Rio de Janeiro it is the Christ the Redeemer statue, which looks down from the summit of Mount Corcovado. Created by the French sculptor Paul Landowsky, the statue is 98 feet (30 m) tall, not including its 26-foot (8 m) base. Its arms are 92 feet (28 m) wide. A Catholic priest named Pedro Maria Boss came up with the idea of placing a statue on Mount Corcovado in the 1850s. Boss wanted to honor Brazil’s Prin- cess Isabel, the daughter of Emperor Pedro II. The project was never approved, but in 1921, the church proposed that a statue of Christ be placed on the mountain. The statue was dedicated in 1931. The luminous modern buildings and the landscaped avenues are not the only features of the Brazil’s cities. Favelas, or slums—shantytowns located at the edges of the city—are a prominent feature in the urban landscape. It is here that squatters occupy vacant land, building ramshackle homes out of anything they can find. Often built into hillsides at the edges of Brazil’s major cities, the favelas are densely populated. They received much attention during the run-up to the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, which were planned for Rio. In that city, the government began moving some residents of the favelas some twen- ty-five miles or so away to make way for roads, renovated stadiums, a village for athletes, and other venues. While the cities are central to life in Brazil, it is the mighty and mysterious Amazon River, its basin and rainforest, that conjures the most mesmerizing images

of the vast country. The Amazon is a place where beetles as big as tea cups roam across the jungle floor, and where hairy spiders have 7-inch (17.8 cm) legs. Located in parts of nine South American countries, the Amazon River area was once an unspoiled region of dense jungle far from civilization. The only human inhabitants were native tribes

A house on the Amazon River.

52

MAJOR NATIONS IN A GLOBAL WORLD: BRAZIL