Venezuela's Collapse: The Long Story of How Things Fell Apart

Why would one in four Venezuelans flee a once-exceptional democracy? Why would Hugo Chavez lead one of the planet's wealthiest countries into a humanitarian crisis even as he remained firmly in control? Conventional wisdom and scholarly writing find explanations in the sudden end of an oil era, the madness of a populist leader, and the influence of a mafia-like cabal. Yet the destruction of the 20th-century state and its society was so pervasive even the current Chavista elites, a decade after their leader's death, can't realize all the profits from the largest oil reserves in the world. Meanwhile, hunger reaches every corner of the country. The roots of a tragedy that today floods the streets of American cities with tens of thousands of Venezuelan refugees must be more profound than usually suspected.In Venezuela's Collapse, Carlos Lizarralde explores centuries-old power struggles between elites and a history of ethnic and racial violence that has ebbed and flowed through hundreds of years. Starting in colonial times, Lizarralde has pieced together the economic, social, and political trends that delivered the Chavista revolutionand a humanitarian crisis.Understanding the historical context behind Chavismo's ransacking of public enterprises and the appearance of a feudal world of violence, hunger, and disease, Venezuela's Collapse offers a compelling argument about what happened in the country.Venezuela's uncertain future will be determined, for better or for worse, by the fractured and conflicted past that fueled the Bolivarian Revolution. Carlos Lizarralde's account will become a key road map in the years ahead. Read more