Book excerpt: Barbosa (sociology, San Francisco State University) provides a global, world-systemic analysis of the problem of deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. He shows how changes in global ecopolitics demanding sustainable development, coupled with the onset of democracy in Brazil, substantially altered the battle over the future of Amazonia. He describes deforestation in the region in the context of an expanding frontier of global capitalism, and compares Amazon experiences with those of Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Indonesia.