As the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games approach, ordinary Brazilians are holding the country's biggest protest marches in decades. Sports journalist Dave Zirin traveled to Brazil to find out why. In a rollicking read that travels from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the fabled Maracanã Stadium, Zirin examines how athletic mega-events turn into neoliberal Trojan horses.

Finding Michael Jackson in Rio : Brazil is not for beginners -- Brazil : "A country for everyone" : Danger: stampeding white elephants ; Priorities ; The Museum of the Slaves ; The Maracaña and the death of crowds ; Environment ; Security -- "There is no sin below the Equator" : Slavery in Brazil ; The beginning of the "mosaic" ; Rumblings of independence ; Brazil as a free state ; The time of Vargas and the military dictatorship ; Goodbye to all that: the end of the dictatorship -- Oh, Lula! : Lula's rise ; Negotiating neoliberalism: Lula's foreign policy ; Lula's domestic policy: image and reality ; A political root canal ; The election of Dilma -- Futebol: the journey from daring to fear : Soccer comes to Brazil's shores ; Garrincha and Pelé ; The cold cool of Pelé ; The unity of Garrincha and Pelé ; The wisdom of Sócrates ; Women and soccer in Brazil ; The neoliberal game -- Killing Santa : In the beginning ; Nazism, the Olympics, and the birth of hypernationalism ; Don Juan Antonio ; FIFA and the World Cup -- Neoliberal Trojan horses and sporting shock doctrines : Greece 2004 ; Beijing 2008 ; Vancouver 2010 ; South Africa 2010 ; London 2012 ; Sochi 2014 ; Qatar 2022 -- Target favelas : The scramble for Rio ; Struggling against eviction in Vila Autódromo ; The Port, Providência, and Maurício Hora -- "FIFA-quality schools " : The resistance ; The real president ; The nobodies.