Cardoso, who served as Brazil's Finance Minister in the early 1990's and then president from 1995 to 2002, shows in his first-rate memoir how far his country has traveled in the 125 years since Emperor Dom Pedro. Cardoso appears, by virtue of being a third-generation politician raised in an upper-middle-class household, to have been minted for the presidency. Yet, as he describes with the panache of a seasoned history writer, privilege did not obscure his vision of Brazil's injustice and poverty: he was born into a time of upheaval and worker revolts and lived through his first coup at age six, a foreshadowing of the tumult he would witness throughout his adult life. This philosopher-turned-politician gives a thorough history of 20th century Brazil, a country blessed with resources but racked by instability and yearning for democratic reform. Not long after his father's death, Cardoso made Brazil's future his mission, as a senator, as finance minister and finally as president where he took on pharmaceutical companies over AIDS treatment. And while Cardoso's family history would seem to have predisposed him to the role of public man, his story is that of a maverick whose curious mind and love for his country helped bring Brazil into the 21st Century as a formidable economic and political power.