This study focuses on the regimes that governed Brazil over the twenty-one-year span ending in 1985. The book examines the organization and the record established by the military during that period, with attention also given to the ideologic tendencies and internal divisions within the military elite. It also considers what obstacles the regimes could not overcome, and where that resistance came from in each of the five regimes. The term mission used in the title of the book, is chosen by the author to describe the non-military mission the leaders accepted-- to them a duty-oriented...