Blowback: Chavez, Oil and Revolution in Venezuela (Supriyo Chatterjee)

The destiny of Venezuela – “Little Venice” as it was baptized by the Spanish conquerors – has been shaped by two men, Simon Bolivar and Hugo Chavez, and by oil. Bolivar freed Venezuela from Spanish rule but did not achieve the dream of Latin American unity. The book explores what happened in the period following his death till the industrial drilling of petroleum. It looks at the impact of oil on Venezuela, how it destroyed agriculture and manufacturing and brought the bulk of the population to a few coastal cities. The oil economy created a political system based on a “pacted democracy” since 1958. It was replaced by a former soldier, Hugo Chavez, who won the elections in 1998 after having been imprisoned for organising a military uprising. The book describes and explains all these events. It then looks at the early years of the Chavez presidency, the military coup against him the petroleum strike in 2002, how Chavez consolidated his support base and ends with his death and legacy. It explains the ideology of ‘Chavismo’, the characteristics of the opposition, the movement towards Latin American unity in Chavez’s lifetime and how petroleum has cemented the new continental integration. It describes the events surrounding Chavez’s illness and death and examines his legacy for Venezuela and the consequences of his experiment for the continent and the wider world. Some of the more recent events, since Chavez’s death, are summarised in the epilogue.