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Deadline

Author : Robert Samet
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022663387X
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

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Book Synopsis Deadline by : Robert Samet

Download or read book Deadline written by Robert Samet and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 2006, Venezuela has had the highest homicide rate in South America and one of the highest levels of gun violence in the world. Former president Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, downplayed the extent of violent crime and instead emphasized rehabilitation. His successor, President Nicolás Maduro, took the opposite approach, declaring an all-out war on crime (mano dura). What accounts for this drastic shift toward more punitive measures? In Deadline, anthropologist Robert Samet answers this question by focusing on the relationship between populism, the press, and what he calls “the will to security.” Drawing on nearly a decade of ethnographic research alongside journalists on the Caracas crime beat, he shows how the media shaped the politics of security from the ground up. Paradoxically, Venezuela’s punitive turn was not the product of dictatorship, but rather an outgrowth of practices and institutions normally associated with democracy. Samet reckons with this apparent contradiction by exploring the circulation of extralegal denuncias (accusations) by crime journalists, editors, sources, and audiences. Denuncias are a form of public shaming or exposé that channels popular anger against the powers that be. By showing how denuncias mobilize dissent, Deadline weaves a much larger tale about the relationship between the press, popular outrage, and the politics of security in the twenty-first century.

Venezuela

Author : Miguel Tinker Salas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199790531
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela by : Miguel Tinker Salas

Download or read book Venezuela written by Miguel Tinker Salas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-02 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the top ten oil exporters in the world and a founding member of OPEC, Venezuela currently supplies 11 percent of U.S. crude oil imports. But when the country elected the fiery populist politician Hugo Chavez in 1998, tensions rose with this key trading partner and relations have been strained ever since. In this concise, accessible addition to Oxford's What Everyone Needs to Know® series, Miguel Tinker Salas -- a native of Venezuela who has written extensively about the country -- takes a broadly chronological approach that focuses especially on oil and its effects on Venezuela's politics, economy, culture, and international relations. After an introductory section that discusses the legacy of Spanish colonialism, Tinker Salas explores the "The Era of the Gusher," a period which began with the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century, encompassed the mid-century development and nationalization of the industry, and ended with a change of government in 1989 in response to widespread protests. The third section provides a detailed discussion of Hugo Chavez-his rise to power, his domestic political and economic policies, and his high-profile forays into international relations-as well as surveying the current landscape of Venezuela in the wake of Chavez's death in March 2013. Arranged in a question-and-answer format that allows readers to search topics of particular interest, the book covers questions such as, who is Simón Bolívar and why is he called the George Washington of Latin America? How did the discovery of oil change Venezuela's relationship to the U.S.? What forces where behind the coups of 1992? And how does Venezuela interact with China, Russia, and Iran? Informative, engaging, and written by a leading expert on the country, Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know® offers an authoritative guide to an increasingly important player on the world stage. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela

Author : Harold A. Trinkunas
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807877036
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela by : Harold A. Trinkunas

Download or read book Crafting Civilian Control of the Military in Venezuela written by Harold A. Trinkunas and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2011-01-20 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlike most other emerging South American democracies, Venezuela has not succumbed to a successful military coup d'etat during four decades of democratic rule. What drives armed forces to follow the orders of elected leaders? And how do emerging democracies gain that control over their military establishments? Harold Trinkunas answers these questions in an examination of Venezuela's transition to democracy following military rule and its attempts to institutionalize civilian control of the military over the past sixty years, a period that included three regime changes. Trinkunas first focuses on the strategic choices democratizers make about the military and how these affect the internal civil-military balance of power in a new regime. He then analyzes a regime's capacity to institutionalize civilian control, looking specifically at Venezuela's failures and successes in this arena during three periods of intense change: the October revolution (1945-48), the Pact of Punto Fijo period (1958-98), and the Fifth Republic under President Hugo Chavez (1998 to the present). Placing Venezuela in comparative perspective with Argentina, Chile, and Spain, Trinkunas identifies the bureaucratic mechanisms democracies need in order to sustain civilian authority over the armed forces.

The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela

Author : Dan Kovalik
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1510750738
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela by : Dan Kovalik

Download or read book The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela written by Dan Kovalik and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the US threat to "save" Venezuela Since 1999 when Hugo Chavez became the elected president of Venezuela, the US has been conniving to overthrow his government and to roll back the Bolivarian Revolution which he ushered in to Venezuela. With the untimely death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, and the election of Nicolas Maduro that followed, the US redoubled its efforts to overturn this revolution. The US is now threatening to intervene militarily to bring about the regime change it has wanted for twenty years. While we have been told that the US’s efforts to overthrow Chavez and Maduro are motivated by altruistic goals of advancing the interests of democracy and human rights in Venezuela, is this true? The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela answers this question with a resounding “no,” demonstrating that: The US’s interests in Venezuela have always centered upon one and only one thing: Venezuela’s vast oil reserves; The US has happily supported one repressive regime after another in Venezuela to protect its oil interests; Chavez and Maduro are not the “tyrants” we have been led to believe they are, but in fact have done much to advance the interests of democracy and economic equality in Venezuela; What the US and the Venezuelan opposition resent most is the fact that Chavez and Maduro have governed in the interest of Venezuela’s vast numbers of poor and oppressed racial groups; While the US claims that it is has the humanitarian interests of the Venezuelan people at heart, the fact is that the US has been waging a one-sided economic war against Venezuela which has greatly undermined the health and living conditions of Venezuelans; The opposition forces the US is attempting to put into power represent Venezuela’s oligarchy who want to place Venezuela’s oil revenues back in the hands of Venezuela’s economic elite as well as US oil companies. The battle for Venezuela which is now being waged will determine the fate of all of Latin America for many years to come. The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela lets readers know what is at stake in this struggle and urges readers to reconsider which side they are on.

The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela

Author : David Smilde
Publisher : Pitt Latin American
ISBN 13 : 9780822947127
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (471 download)

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Book Synopsis The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela by : David Smilde

Download or read book The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela written by David Smilde and published by Pitt Latin American. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crime and violence soared in twenty-first century Venezuela even as poverty decreased, contradicting the conventional wisdom that poverty and inequality are the underlying causes of violence. The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela explains the rise of violence under both Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro--democratically elected leftists who made considerable investment in social programs and political inclusion. Contributors argue that violence arose not from the frustration of inequality, or the needs created by poverty, but rather from the interrelated factors of a particular type of revolutionary governance, extraordinary oil revenues, a reliance on militarized policing, and the persistence of concentrated disadvantage. These factors led to dramatic but unequal economic growth, massive institutional and social change, and dysfunctional criminal justice policies that destabilized illicit markets and social networks, leading to an increase in violent conflict resolution. The Paradox of Violence in Venezuela reorients thinking about violence and its relationship to poverty, inequality, and the state.

Comandante

Author : Rory Carroll
Publisher : Penguin Books
ISBN 13 : 0143124889
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis Comandante by : Rory Carroll

Download or read book Comandante written by Rory Carroll and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the leadership of Venezuela's elected president, Hugo Chávez, and his efforts to transform his country and paints a picture of his life based on interviews with ministers, aides, courtiers, and everyday citizens.

Venezuela Before Chávez

Author : Ricardo Hausmann
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 0271064641
Total Pages : 549 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela Before Chávez by : Ricardo Hausmann

Download or read book Venezuela Before Chávez written by Ricardo Hausmann and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-06-13 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the beginning of the twentieth century, Venezuela had one of the poorest economies in Latin America, but by 1970 it had become the richest country in the region and one of the twenty richest countries in the world, ahead of countries such as Greece, Israel, and Spain. Between 1978 and 2001, however, Venezuela’s economy went sharply in reverse, with non-oil GDP declining by almost 19 percent and oil GDP by an astonishing 65 percent. What accounts for this drastic turnabout? The editors of Venezuela Before Chávez, who each played a policymaking role in the country’s economy during the past two decades, have brought together a group of economists and political scientists to examine systematically the impact of a wide range of factors affecting the economy’s collapse, from the cost of labor regulation and the development of financial markets to the weakening of democratic governance and the politics of decisions about industrial policy. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Omar Bello, Adriana Bermúdez, Matías Braun, Javier Corrales, Jonathan Di John, Rafael Di Tella, Javier Donna, Samuel Freije, Dan Levy, Robert MacCulloch, Osmel Manzano, Francisco Monaldi, María Antonia Moreno, Daniel Ortega, Michael Penfold, José Pineda, Lant Pritchett, Cameron A. Shelton, and Dean Yang.

Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse

Author : William Neuman
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1250266173
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse by : William Neuman

Download or read book Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse written by William Neuman and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named Foreign Affairs Best Books of 2022 and the National Endowment for Democracy Notable Books of 2022 "Richly reported...a thorough and important history." -Tim Padgett, The New York Times A nuanced and deeply-reported account of the collapse of Venezuela, and what it could mean for the rest of the world. Today, Venezuela is a country of perpetual crisis—a country of rolling blackouts, nearly worthless currency, uncertain supply of water and food, and extreme poverty. In the same land where oil—the largest reserve in the world—sits so close to the surface that it bubbles from the ground, where gold and other mineral resources are abundant, and where the government spends billions of dollars on public works projects that go abandoned, the supermarket shelves are bare and the hospitals have no medicine. Twenty percent of the population has fled, creating the largest refugee exodus in the world, rivaling only war-torn Syria’s crisis. Venezuela’s collapse affects all of Latin America, as well as the United States and the international community. Republicans like to point to Venezuela as the perfect example of the emptiness of socialism, but it is a better model for something else: the destructive potential of charismatic populist leadership. The ascent of Hugo Chávez was a precursor to the emergence of strongmen that can now be seen all over the world, and the success of the corrupt economy he presided over only lasted while oil sold for more than $100 a barrel. Chávez’s regime and policies, which have been reinforced under Nicolás Maduro, squandered abundant resources and ultimately bankrupted the country. Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse is a fluid combination of journalism, memoir, and history that chronicles Venezuela’s tragic journey from petro-riches to poverty. Author William Neuman witnessed it all firsthand while living in Caracas and serving as the New York Times Andes Region Bureau Chief. His book paints a clear-eyed, riveting, and highly personal portrait of the crisis unfolding in real time, with all of its tropical surrealism, extremes of wealth and suffering, and gripping drama. It is also a heartfelt reflection of the country’s great beauty and vibrancy—and the energy, passion, and humor of its people, even under the most challenging circumstances.

The Real Venezuela

Author : Iain Bruce
Publisher : Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Real Venezuela by : Iain Bruce

Download or read book The Real Venezuela written by Iain Bruce and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2008 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refreshing look at the meaning of socialism in Venezuela from the point of view of the country's ordinary citizens.

Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective

Author : Kirk A. Hawkins
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 052176503X
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (217 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective by : Kirk A. Hawkins

Download or read book Venezuela's Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective written by Kirk A. Hawkins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the populist movement of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and argues that populism is primarily a response to widespread corruption. It defends a definition of populism as a set of ideas and measures populism across Venezuela and other countries. It also explores the influence of populist ideas on political organization and policy.

The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela

Author : Jennifer L. McCoy
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801884283
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (842 download)

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Book Synopsis The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela by : Jennifer L. McCoy

Download or read book The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela written by Jennifer L. McCoy and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For four decades, Venezuela prided itself for having one of the most stable representative democracies in Latin America. Then, in 1992, Hugo Chávez Frías attempted an unsuccessful military coup. Six years later, he was elected president. Once in power, Chávez redrafted the 1961 constitution, dissolved the Congress, dismissed judges, and marginalized rival political parties. In a bid to create direct democracy, other Latin American democracies watched with mixed reactions: if representative democracy could break down so quickly in Venezuela, it could easily happen in countries with less-established traditions. On the other hand, would Chávez create a new form of democracy to redress the plight of the marginalized poor? In this volume of essays, leading scholars from Venezuela and the United States ask why representative democracy in Venezuela unraveled so swiftly and whether it can be restored. Its thirteen chapters examine the crisis in three periods: the unraveling of Punto Fijo democracy; Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution; and the course of "participatory democracy" under Chávez. The contributors analyze such factors as the vulnerability of Venezuelan democracy before Chávez; the role of political parties, organized labor, the urban poor, the military, and businessmen; and the impact of public and economic policy. This timely volume offers important lessons for comparative regime change within hybrid democracies. Contributors: Damarys Canache, Florida State University; Rafael de la Cruz, Inter-American Development Bank; José Antonio Gil, Yepes Datanalisis; Richard S. Hillman, St. John Fisher College; Janet Kelly, Graduate Institute of Business, Caracas; José E. Molina, University of Zulia; Mosés Naím, Foreign Policy; Nelson Ortiz, Caracas Stock Exchange; Pedro A. Palma, Graduate Institute of Business, Caracas; Carlos A. Romero and Luis Salamanca, Central University of Venezuela; Harold Trinkunas, Naval Postgraduate School.

Extraordinary Threat

Author : Justin Podur
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1583679162
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (836 download)

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Book Synopsis Extraordinary Threat by : Justin Podur

Download or read book Extraordinary Threat written by Justin Podur and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US foreign policy decisions behind six coup attempts against the Venezuelan government – and Venezuela's heightening precarity In March 2015, President Obama initiated sanctions against Venezuela, declaring a “national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.” Each year, the US administration has repeated this claim. But, as Joe Emersberger and Justin Podur argue in their timely book, Extraordinary Threat, the opposite is true: It is the US policy of regime change in Venezuela that constitutes an “extraordinary threat” to Venezuelans. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans continue to die because of these ever-tightening US sanctions, denying people daily food, medicine, and fuel. On top of this, Venezuela has, since 2002, been subjected to repeated coup attempts by US-backed forces. In Extraordinary Threat, Emersberger and Podur tell the story of six coup attempts against Venezuela. This book deflates the myths propagated about the Venezuelan government’s purported lack of electoral legitimacy, scant human rights, and disastrous economic development record. Contrary to accounts lobbed by the corporate media, the real target of sustained U.S. assault on Venezuela is not the country’s claimed authoritarianism or its supposed corruption. It is Chavismo, the prospect that twenty-first century socialism could be brought about through electoral and constitutional means. This is what the US empire must not allow to succeed.

Bad News from Venezuela

Author : Alan Macleod
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351038249
Total Pages : 158 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Bad News from Venezuela by : Alan Macleod

Download or read book Bad News from Venezuela written by Alan Macleod and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the election of President Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela has become an important news item. Western coverage is shaped by the cultural milieu of its journalists, with news written from New York or London by non-specialists or by those staying inside wealthy guarded enclaves in an intensely segregated Caracas. Journalists mainly work with English-speaking elites and have little contact with the poor majority. Therefore, they reproduce ideas largely attuned to a Western, neoliberal understanding of Venezuela. Through extensive analysis of media coverage from Chavez’s election to the present day, as well as detailed interviews with journalists and academics covering the country, Bad News from Venezuela highlights the factors contributing to reportage in Venezuela and why those factors exist in the first place. From this examination of a single Latin American country, the book furthers the discussion of contemporary media in the West, and how, with the rise of ‘fake news’, their operations have a significant impact on the wider representation of global affairs. Bad News from Venezuela is comprehensive and enlightening for undergraduate students and research academics in media and Latin American studies.

Venezuela

Author : Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1598845705
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis Venezuela by : Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols

Download or read book Venezuela written by Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive overview of Venezuelan history, culture, and politics is designed to ground the high school student's knowledge of the crucial role of the nation on the international scene. Venezuela stands out as one of Latin America's most influential, yet controversial countries, leading students to want to know more about the nation and its outspoken president. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to ground an understanding of the contemporary nation, Venezuela provides the reader with an overview of the Venezuelan story from 1499 to the present. The study provides a comprehensive look at all aspects of life in this South American powerhouse, discussing the nation's geography, history, government and politics, economy, society, and culture. Specific attention is directed to topics such as industry, labor, religion, ethnicity, women, etiquette, literature, art, music, and food, among many others. In addition, the book examines the controversy surrounding Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez. Written in an accessible and engaging tone, this volume is ideal for high school and undergraduate students—and essential for library shelves.

The History of Venezuela

Author : H. Micheal Tarver
Publisher : St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN 13 : 9781403962607
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (626 download)

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Book Synopsis The History of Venezuela by : H. Micheal Tarver

Download or read book The History of Venezuela written by H. Micheal Tarver and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With an upcoming election, Chávez's involvement with U.S. oil exports, and the country becoming a leader of an increasingly united South America, this volume provides necessary background information to understand how Venezuela became what it is today. The history begins with Columbus's third voyage of discovery from Spain. Spanish explorers named the land "Little Venice" for the native homes built on stilts at the water's edge. Tracing the nation's 300 years as a Spanish colony through a brief unification followed by civil war, Tarver brings Venezuela's dramatic history to life. Highlighting events including the discovery of oil in the 1900s and the establishment of democratic government in 1958, Tarver offers a comprehensive chronicle that contextualizes the current unrest under the leadership of Hugo Chávez.

Spectacular Modernity

Author : Lisa Blackmore
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822982366
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Spectacular Modernity by : Lisa Blackmore

Download or read book Spectacular Modernity written by Lisa Blackmore and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-07-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Fernando Coronil Prize for best book about Venezuela, awarded by the Venezuelan Studies Section of LASA. In cultural history, the 1950s in Venezuela are commonly celebrated as a golden age of modernity, realized by a booming oil economy, dazzling modernist architecture, and nationwide modernization projects. But this is only half the story. In this path-breaking study, Lisa Blackmore reframes the concept of modernity as a complex cultural formation in which modern aesthetics became deeply entangled with authoritarian politics. Drawing on extensive archival research and presenting a wealth of previously unpublished visual materials, Blackmore revisits the decade-long dictatorship to unearth the spectacles of progress that offset repression and censorship. Analyses of a wide range of case studies—from housing projects to agricultural colonies, urban monuments to official exhibitions, and carnival processions to consumer culture—reveal the manifold apparatuses that mythologized visionary leadership, advocated technocratic development, and presented military rule as the only route to progress. Offering a sharp corrective to depoliticized accounts of the period, Spectacular Modernity instead exposes how Venezuelans were promised a radically transformed landscape in exchange for their democratic freedoms.

The Enduring Legacy

Author : Miguel Tinker Salas
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822392232
Total Pages : 343 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis The Enduring Legacy by : Miguel Tinker Salas

Download or read book The Enduring Legacy written by Miguel Tinker Salas and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2009-04-20 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil has played a major role in Venezuela’s economy since the first gusher was discovered along Lake Maracaibo in 1922. As Miguel Tinker Salas demonstrates, oil has also transformed the country’s social, cultural, and political landscapes. In The Enduring Legacy, Tinker Salas traces the history of the oil industry’s rise in Venezuela from the beginning of the twentieth century, paying particular attention to the experiences and perceptions of industry employees, both foreign and Venezuelan. He reveals how class ambitions and corporate interests combined to reshape many Venezuelans’ ideas of citizenship. Middle-class Venezuelans embraced the oil industry from the start, anticipating that it would transform the country by introducing modern technology, sparking economic development, and breaking the landed elites’ stranglehold. Eventually Venezuelan employees of the industry found that their benefits, including relatively high salaries, fueled loyalty to the oil companies. That loyalty sometimes trumped allegiance to the nation-state. North American and British petroleum companies, seeking to maintain their stakes in Venezuela, promoted the idea that their interests were synonymous with national development. They set up oil camps—residential communities to house their workers—that brought Venezuelan employees together with workers from the United States and Britain, and eventually with Chinese, West Indian, and Mexican migrants as well. Through the camps, the companies offered not just housing but also schooling, leisure activities, and acculturation into a structured, corporate way of life. Tinker Salas contends that these practices shaped the heart and soul of generations of Venezuelans whom the industry provided with access to a middle-class lifestyle. His interest in how oil suffused the consciousness of Venezuela is personal: Tinker Salas was born and raised in one of its oil camps.