For all of Brazil's efforts to reduce poverty-and its progress-the favelas in Rio de Janeiro still house one-third of the city's poor, and violence permeates every aspect of the city. As urban drug gangs and police wage war in the streets, favela residents who are especially vulnerable live in fear of being caught in the crossfire. Politicians, human rights activists, and security authorities have been working to minimize the social and economic problems at the root of this "war."

Living in the Crossfire presents impassioned testimony from officials, residents, and others in response to the ongoing crisis. Maria Helena Moreira Alves and Philip Evanson provide vivid accounts from grieving mothers and members of the police working to stop the war and, among officials, from Brazil's President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who discusses his efforts to improve public security.

 

Maria Helena Moreira Alves is retired from the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. She twice received a Tinker International Fellowship to teach at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has worked with various human rights organizations, trade unions in Latin America, and nongovernmental organizations. She is the author of State and Opposition in Military Brazil.

Philip Evanson is Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of History and former Director of the Latin American Studies Center at Temple University. He collaborated with author Rose Marie Muraro on the book Memórias de uma mulher impossível.