"Known around the world simply as Lula, Luis Inâacio Lula da Silva was born in 1945 to illiterate migrant parents in northeastern Brazil. He learned to read at ten years of age, left school at fourteen, became a skilled metalworker, rose to union leadership, helped end a military dictatorship-and in 2003 became the thirty-fifth president of Brazil. During his eight-year administration, Lula led his country through reforms that lifted tens of millions out of poverty. Here, John D. French, one of the foremost historians of Brazil, provides the first critical biography of the leader whom even his political enemies see as strikingly charismatic, humorous, and endearing"--
