This book publishes texts specially produced for the closing session and two of the six panels of the 20th National Forum (2008), an event that marked twenty years of uninterrupted operation of the National Forum. In the opening and introduction, João Paulo dos Reis Velloso, general coordinator of the National Forum, shares the beautiful text read at the opening of the 20th National Forum, in which he states that he had a dream: "The dream that Brazil would no longer be the country of lost opportunities." A dream that is becoming reality, because "Brazil is already changing." The first part of the book addresses the theme "Love in Times of Heartbreak" (there are no taboo topics for the Forum, which aims to be a broad field of discussion and proposals). Names such as Maria Adelaide Amaral address the theme "Great Universal Loves"; professor and theologian Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, "Love in Times of Heartbreak: The Lessons of Bossa Nova"; philosopher and psychoanalyst Renato Mezan, "Romantic Love in the 21st Century"; to professor and philosopher Danilo Marcondes, "Love and Friendship: Eros and Philia"; to writer and philosopher Gilberto de Mello Kujawski, "Love of Country in Times of Globalization?"; and to Literature professor Myriam Brito Corrêa Nunes, "John Donne and Love in a Universal Dimension." In the year marking the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro, the second part of the book seeks to answer the question that for many is a national enigma: "Is there a way for Brazil to be saved?" This is addressed in the works of Professor Arthur Ituassu and journalist Rodrigo Almeida, entitled "Does Brazil Have a Way?"; by Brazilian scholar Albert Fishlow ("Brazil: The Return of Sustained Growth?"); by historian Mary Del Priori ("A Revision of Paradise: State and Society in 500 Years"); by Professor Jaime Pinsky ("Brazil in the First World?"); by the vice-president of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, Sergio F. Quintella ("Political Reform for Brazil to Find a Way"); and by historian and member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Alberto da Costa e Silva ("Dom João and Brazilian Foreign Trade"). The third part addresses an equally disturbing question: Where are Brazilian cities headed? The answer comes from Professor Luiz Cesar de Queiroz Ribeiro, who calls for urgent and new directions for urban reform in the country that deepens the "sense of community"; by Professor and former Ipea superintendent Hamilton Tolosa, who examines the challenges of Brazilian urbanization from a microspatial perspective; by the coordinator of the Megacities Project, José Luiz Alquéres, who proposes new institutional frameworks for the Brazilian megalopolis formed by Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo; by Colonel José Vicente da Silva Filho and sociologist Luiz Eduardo Soares, both former national secretaries of Public Security, who develop strategies for Public Security in the country's major cities; and the president of the Federation of Favela Associations (Rio de Janeiro), Rossino de Castro, who addresses the theme "Favelas: Citizens Without a State." In the final part of the book, Roberto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque, technical director of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, presents the Social Development Index (IDS), a tool for analyzing the social evolution of Brazil, its regions, and states, covering the period 1970–2007.
