Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
a good antidote to the lies, October 10, 2006
This book is an excellent primer on Chavez, warts and all. The challenge to the US Kozloff delineates fully and articulately, not least by spending ample time revealing his subject's severe awakening to political and global realities through prison, failure, and a lightning quick mind. The first three chapters patiently define the origins of Chavez's political consciousness, and make the rest of the book more important and substantial. Chapter 3 - 'TINA - There Is No Alternative' - is especially helpful in getting to the root of who Chavez is, and who he might become, and why his appears to be a success with unlimited possibilities in terms of resisting the hegemony of American foreign policy. True, Kozloff is an admirer of sorts, but he pulls no punches. There is much to be admired in Hugo Chavez, as the world witnessed during his recent no-nonsense address to the UN, where he clearly distinguished himself as a determined, even poetic, global thinker. Chapter 4 takes its time outlining the nefarious meddling of Gustavo Cisneros, documenting along the way Cisneros' cozying up to George Herbert Liquor Bush. This is one of the few books around casting a clear-headed overview of the IMF, the disastrous effects of NAFTA, and the early White House plots against Chavez involving Otto Reich (Lockheed Martin), Pedro Carmona, and the CIA. These ideas are fully documented throughout the book with 65 pages of scrupulously detailed notes. One of the most interesting findings in the pages of this book is the struggle against racism represented by Hugo Chavez. His grasp of world affairs and his love for Venezuela come to be seen as inseparable from that honorable struggle. An excellent antidote to the prevailing American government line, it's also an essential look at the aiding and abetting committed by American corporate media in conformist manipulation. A must read.
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40 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
Good Review of Chavez's Struggle with Imperialism, August 18, 2006
This is a well written study of Chavez's rise and battle with American inspired/directed/financed efforts to destabilize his regime. Clearly, the author is sympathetic with the global efforts to resist IMF (i.e., US) hegemony and sees Chavez as a prime leader. Of course, most Americans blindly believe the lies that routinely emerge from our corrupt governement sources, but Kozloff paints a picture, perhaps sometimes too rosey, of Chavez's efforts to socialize his deeply-divided country. Maybe a little more discussion of Chavez's sometimes repressive methods (completely justified in my view when one considers how insidious American subversive efforts have been and still are) would have been warranted also. Though I despise Bush as much as any red-blooded American patriot should, I found Kozloff's constant references to how scared/terrified/concerned Bush and his gang would be by such and such an action of Chavez's to be off-putting and tediously redundant. I thought Kozloff should have devoted more space to Venezuela's dealings with OPEC since oil is part of the title and would have liked more on Chavez's foreign policy maneuverings outside Latin America, but obviously he decided to limit the size of the book. All in all, a sound and somewhat personal recounting.
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8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Kozloff's Book on Hugo Chavez, April 2, 2007
Nikolas Kozloff's "Hugo Chavez" is a worthwhile, informative read. The author is well-versed in Latin American history and politics, having studied them extensively. As well, he has lived in Venezuela and other parts of South America and traveled frequently throughout the region. The book is concise (there are actually fewer than 200 pages excluding endnotes) and covers the topic admirably.
The subject of the book, Hugo Chavez, is currently the preeminent symbol of the ideological battle pitting the "Washington consensus" or "neoliberal" policies championed by the IMF versus the widespread populist push to the left seen today throughout much of Latin America. While one can point to apparent IMF success stories in Asia, one must also acknowledge that the IMF agenda has done little to benefit most residents of the Latin American nations. Kozloff's book does an excellent job of showing the reasons why so many in the region are discontented and anxious for a new economic and political direction. Regardless of a reader's ideological leanings, Kozloff's examination of the region can only help inform one's own opinions.
For me, the latter chapters were particularly beneficial. There the discussion expands beyond Chavez and Venezuela to the regional indigenous peoples movement, as well as to the lives and political careers of many of Chavez's South American counterparts: Lula of Brazil, Kirchner of Argentina, Morales of Bolivia, Vazquez of Uraguay, Uribe of Columbia, and Correa's predecessors in Ecuador. This information taken in sum creates a good big picture view of the political currents moving across Latin America today.
While I recommend this book, I feel I should point out that it sometimes suffers from poor editing. I spotted 15 or 20 obvious typos. A paragraph in chapter four reappears in chapter six with only slightly altered wording. Some paragraphs have conflicts in tense or are otherwise poorly worded. The reader's concentration is broken far too often, and as a result, the flow of the book suffers. Having said that, I feel the information contained in the text more than offsets the flawed editing.
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