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CHAVEZ AND THE ENIGMA OF VENEZUELA (A HISTORY) |
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“I went down into the valley. The soil was full of diamonds but swarmed with mighty snakes, from which I sought refuge in a cave.”
Sinbad |
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“And yet talkative resolution may be as genuine as grim resolve.”
Conrad, from Nostromo |
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“De una parte ya estoy asado; dadme la vuelta.”
Saint Lawrence (from de Voragine) |
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I. The "land of contrasts" |
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(1) The founder of OPEC used his burnt-out Singer car as a monument to incompetence |
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(2) Were all those gorgeous Venezuelan misses subsidized? |
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(3) The source of Venezuela's riches was the slime formed by mud, seaweeds, and tiny creatures you need a microscope to recognize |
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II. The colonial formation of Venezuela |
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(1) The last Amerindian stand was against Standard Oil of Venezuela in 1926 |
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(2) Every important political event in the formation of Venezuela originated in something specific that happened in Europe |
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(3) Venezuela's forbidding geography determined its natural boundaries |
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III. Venezuelan independence |
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(1) Marx's Bolivar would make Chavez's hair stand on end |
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(2) The Venezuelan pardos were not keen on having Bolivar liberate them |
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(3) A Peruvian pardo nostalgic for the viceroyalty invents a demeaning story about the origins of his country's flag |
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(4) Did the British Legion liberate Venezuela and Colombia? |
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(5) Few in Great Colombia appreciated Bolivar's legislative masterpiece |
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IV. The Venezuelan 19th century |
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(1) How the caudillo system worked |
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(2) The saga of the Monagas family |
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(3) Guzman Blanco probably was tired of ruling Venezuela when he left for Paris and never returned |
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V. Castro and Gomez |
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(1) Cipriano Castro, a Cognac addict, invoked the Monroe Doctrine to avoid paying Venezuela's international debts |
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(2) A tyrant called The Catfish had a theorist who thought the people needed white strongmen to rule them |
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(3) As petroleum was pouring out of every crack in Venezuela's topography, it didn't require geologists to know where the country's economy was heading |
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VI. The aborted road to gradual democracy |
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(1) A long, gaunt president is followed by an orotund one who did not make many demands on himself |
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(2) The "father of democracy" was a co-conspirator with ambitious military |
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(3) Delgado Chalbaud was twice a betrayer and he might have been done in by a comrade in arms |
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(4) The Venezuelan dictator who thought that Rome's greatest legacy were its ruins |
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(5) A racist immigration policy that backfired |
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VII. The arrival of full democracy |
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(1) 1958: Annus mirabilis |
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(2) The time Nixon was covered in spit by a Venezuelan mob |
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(3) A collective suicide in Jonestown proved that Venezuela was not that serious about its claim on half of Guyana |
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(4) The Venezuelan "plane" refused to take-off, as W.W. Rostow expected |
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(5) The mad "milk plan" which made cows happy and its beneficiaries delirious |
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(6) Carlos Andres Perez was once the most beloved and then the most detested of Venezuelan presidents (and it wasn’t all his fault) |
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(7) Luis Herrera Campins declares war on the UK and Venezuelans were not informed |
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(8) A candidate’s mistress becomes the subject of electoral polemics |
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(9) Caracas explodes and Chavez sees a big opening for himself |
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VIII. The Chavez "revolution" |
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IX. Glossary |
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