The BRICS (an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) is a supranational organization that brings together various countries identified as emerging economies. Unlike the Western capitalist model or, at one time, so-called "real socialism," it is not an institution that seeks to expand a particular and closed economic, political, cultural, and ideological project. Instead, it favors a hybrid and pragmatic approach to diverse national realities that uphold mutual respect, non-interference, national sovereignty, and, ultimately, the creation of a new system that reconfigures the North-South/West-East relations landscape, which has been in place since the end of World War II.

Despite a certain silence in Western media, the BRICS are currently the most powerful strategic force in the Global South, challenging the unipolar model led by the US. And here arises the crucial question: can the struggle between a unipolar and a multipolar world ultimately lead to the construction of a more democratic and pluralistic alternative world order?

This book presents the importance of the BRICS project in the current global context. Its pages explain the logic behind its inception from a historical perspective, its evolution, and its current growth and maturity in confronting the barriers of the hegemonic Western model. If we fail to pay attention to the BRICS, we will not understand the changes taking place in the world today, and without understanding this transforming world, we are doomed to further failure.