"Jerry Davila has transformed the history of Brazil's diplomatic initiatives in Africa during the era of decolonization, adding not only depth and fascinating detail to this story, but also showing how the pursuit of a special Brazil-Africa relationship both drew upon Brazil's claims to be a 'racially democratic' nation, and laid bare the contradictions in those claims."--Barbara Weinstein, author of For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in Sao Paulo, 1920-1964 "Hotel Tropico is a superb book. It takes on broad themes such as race and imperialism, modifies much of the current knowledge about Brazil's dictatorship, and suggests a re-evaluation of that form of government in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Hotel Tropico will be read not only by scholars of Brazil and Latin America but also by those studying Africa, empire, and post-colonialism." --Jeffrey Lesser, author of A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960-1980