COHA Research Fellow Brian Nelson Publishes Book, Begins Lecture Circuit

Brian Nelson’s New Book on Venezuela
COHA Research Fellow Brian Nelson’s recently published book, entitled The Silence And The Scorpion (The Coup Against Chávez and the Making of A Modern Venezuela), is now available. The book presents a fast-paced journalistic narrative, which documents Venezuela’s short-lived 2002 military coup that temporarily removed Hugo Chávez from power and then witnessed his subsequent return to power only hours later. Brian Nelson first traveled to Venezuela in 1988, where he lived while attending school in Caracas, and later went there again on a Fulbright Scholarship. He returned in 2002 on a Fulbright Grant in creative writing. Currently, he teaches at Johns Hopkins University.

The Silence And The Scorpion is a fast-paced non-fiction novel that cleverly dissects the three pivotal days in Venezuela’s modern history during the attempted coup d’etat. The book characterizes those three days as a defining moment in the country’s political destiny, an event that has helped guarantee the political turmoil that is now being witnessed in Venezuelan society.

Lecture Tour
This fall, Mr. Nelson will embark on a lecture circuit around the country to talk about a wide range of issues concerning contemporary Venezuela, in the context of a new Latin America characterized by strong populist trends. His presentations incorporate facts, trends, and statistics that vividly address unfolding developments in Venezuela, and will feature a wealth of stories based on his own personal experiences in the country. He also will relate the accounts coming from a variety of sources, including senior Venezuelan officials, friends and associates. In the past, he has lectured on a variety of subjects, which include:

• “The Coup”—Using films and testimonies he portrays a very different coup, one where both the Chávez government and the opposition committed what Nelson considers to be criminal acts.
• “Beauty Queens, Oligarchs, and Boligarchs”—Reviews the class struggle in Venezuela, the plight of the poor, and the quest to purge Venezuela of its excessive materialism.
• “Corruption and the Quest for Oil”—A look at why perhaps the most resource-rich country in Latin America is also the most corrupt.
• Chávez in Historic Context—How the collapse of Venezuela’s mortally flawed capitalist system helped sweep Chávez into office, and how Chávez was inspired and perhaps mentored by the leaders of Cuba’s socialist State of the 1960’s.
• “Expanding the revolution”—The implications of Chávez’s ability to stand for re-election for Venezuela and for the U.S., as well as how his alliance with Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Cuba might help shape Latin America.

You may find Brian Nelson’s New Book The Silence and the Scorpion in bookstores, or online, at any of the following websites:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Silence-Scorpion-Short-Lived-Against-Chavez/dp/1568584180/
Powells:
http://powells.com/biblio/1-9781568584188-0
Indiebound:
http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781568584188

Prices start as low as $17.79 new