More than seventy-five years after Get250;lio Vargas8217;s 1930 8220;Revolution8221; and more than half a century after his suicide, politicians, scholars and the Brazilian public still debate whether his era has actually come to an end. Yet, as Brazil8217;s leading news magazine Veja emphasized in August 2004, Vargas8217;s enigma will not be deciphered through uncritical studies and hagiographic novels, but through serious scholarly analyses. Vargas and Brazil: New Perspectives unites scholars from Brazil, the U.S. and Europe, who draw on a close re-reading of the literature, hitherto unavailable or unused sources, and a wide array of methodologies, to shed new light on the political changes and cultural representations of Vargas8217;s regimes, thereby exploring why he meant so many different things to different people.