Brazillionaires

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-Eike Batista was recently the eighth-richest person in the world, worth more than $30 billion and determined to reach the top spot. His rise owed a lot to the stunning emergence of the world's developing economies. His fall tells a lot about the overreaching hubris of the new class of global hyperwealth. -Alex Cuadros was a freelance reporter in Latin America who was sucked into the world of Brazilian billionaires when he covered them for Bloomberg Businessweek's billionaires team. He was seduced and repelled and fascinated by their hermetic lives, outsized personalities, and immense power. And none drew him in like Batista. -The story of Brazil's billionaires is a microcosm of the story of the rising economies of the former third world. Just a couple of decades ago, Brazil was an underdeveloped country emerging from a long military dictatorship. Now it is among the world's leading economies, a big shift for a country tired of its fame for lyrical soccer, very small bikinis, and the spectacular violence of bleak favelas. -Brazillionaires tells the story of this vast and complex country by burrowing into the lives and finances of its wealthiest citizens, a cast of characters at times diabolical, oddball, and even inspiring. -It also asks important questions about what massive wealth concentration and inequality is doing to societies around the world, for better and worse.