Hugo Chavez

In this highly laudatory study of Hugo Chavez, veteran journalist Richard Gott, who has spent years in Latin America and knows the territory, provides an account of Chavez`s rise to power and the changes he has brought to his country. Placing him in a historical context going back to Bolivar, Gott sees Chavez as a revolutionary with a leftist orientation, but not a Marxist. Gott says Chavez is a utopian visionary, who, upon being elected in 1998, embarked on programs of reform in agriculture, the oil business, and domestic policies regarding indigenous peoples. Chavez`s new foreign policies, he reports, included a proposal for a Euro-style Latin American currency and a NATO-like defense organization for Latin America that would not include the U.S. Gott writes of the 2002 coup, the popular uprising that restored Chavez to power, and the opposition that Chavez acknowledges has some grievances. Gott ends with the statement that the Bolivarian Revolution remains permanently at risk and under threat, and points to the U.S. as a destabilizing force in the region. Chavez`s friendship with Cuba`s Castro and the fact that Venezuela has a huge oil industry that ships millions of barrels a day to the U.S. places it on the radar of the American government of George W. Bush, and Richard Gott`s book provides an accessible, well-researched backgrounder for the debates to come. (This book was previously called IN THE SHADOW OF THE LIBERATOR, and has been updated and retitled by the author.) Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.