Several books have been written about the Brazilian military, and today some of those books are considered classics in the literature, for example, Walder de Góes's O Brazil do General Geisel, Hélio Silva's O poder militar, and Alfred Stepan's Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone. Most of the books discuss the Brazilian military and its coup d'état as a homogenous event devoid of any opposition to the top brass in the aftermath of the March 31, 1964 putsch that overthrew the government of João Goulart. Maud Chirio provides readers with a fresh interpretation of the events that transpired in 1964. Her hypothesis is that the lack of any real military resistance and, indeed, the confidence and enthusiasm with which the overwhelming majority of officers regarded the overthrow of João Goulart's government played a major role. She also argues that the building of this consensus, which conflicted with the constitutional requirements of the military institution, began not long before the coup, that is, later than 1961 (17).

Writing from a bottom-up rather than a top-down perspective, Chirio tells the story of young captains, majors, and colonels who believed they deserved to participate in the exercise of power. From a top-down perspective, a respect for discipline and complete abstinence from political activity was demanded of lower-ranking officers, while their commanders ran the highest functions of state. As Orlando Geisel, Army Minister of the Third Military Government, stated during a meeting of the Army High Command, “We [the Armed Forces] must project the image that we do not think about politics” (11). While the officers of ’64 thought of themselves and their army as an “apolitical” institution, Brazil's political history is nothing but a footnote to the importance of the military in shaping the nation's future. The Brazilian army has always exercised its “poder moderador” (moderating power) when the nation's core values are under attack, according to its perspective. Brazil's core values are family values, defense of the country's Judeo-Christian traditions, and an adamant opposition to Marxism, a cause to which João Goulart was accused of being sympathetic.

Those officers who opposed President Castelo Branco, a general, used two tools to express their dissatisfaction with the regime, namely, military inquiries (the IPMs) and LIDER. The “IPM colonels” were the figureheads of an organized military opposition to Castelo Branco, which for several months had been presenting a “revolutionary” alternative (75). LIDER was another group opposed to Castelo Branco. LIDER officers adopted the rhetoric of Admiral Silvio Heck: economic nationalism and the “authenticity” of a radical revolution (75). Even LIDER, despite its opposition to Castelo Branco, was not a monolithic organization. Within the organization, there were several military traditions and factions which attempted to advance the “authenticity” of a radical revolution. One advantage LIDER officers held over the IMP colonels is that many of them were reserve military personnel and thus less liable to disciplinary actions than their serving colleagues (78).

As the Brazilian military consolidated its grip on the soul of the nation, organized actors resistant to the generals continued to advance their own agenda. Among these was the “first hard line,” who lived behind the scenes, the developing agencies of political repression, right-wing paramilitary and terrorist groups, and the captains’ generation (99). While other books treat the Brazilian military as a coherent and apolitical organization, Chirio's book presents it as an institution wherein the “subversion of the hierarchy” started right from the beginning of the 1964 coup. As Chirio points out, “defining the revolutionary idea was the leitmotif of military protest” (89).

I recommend this book to anyone interested in Latin American Studies or Brazilian history. Chirio presents a fresh outlook on the history of the 1964 coup, telling it from the perspective of those officers directly involved in the coup and their dissatisfaction with the direction and consolidation of the revolutionary hard-liners. As she argues, “he history in this book is a history of the vanquished, of the middle ranking officers who were not able to prevent the consolidation of a hierarchical military regime despite their past, their involvement in the state apparatus, or even a ‘spirit of the times’ that occasionally looked kindly on actions by reform-minded junior officers” (239-40).