Venezuela

Both leftist supporters and rightist opponents of the Chavez government will be outraged by the book’s premise that the Chavez regime is neither dictatorial nor revolutionary, but rather is one of a long line of Latin American populist regimes that are ultimately subservient to the U.S. government and to the transnational corporations. Topics include Venezuela’s political history and the long involvement of the military in that history; Venezuela’s economy, and more especially Venezuela’s oil economy; Venezuela’s indigenous rights and human rights movements; Venezuela’s labor movement; and the social policies of the Chavez government and its predecessors. In the course of discussing these topics, the author cites hundreds of sources, a great many of them first-hand.