Books Recommended for the COHA Readership
Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics, and the
Challenge to the U.S.
Authored by Nikolas Kozloff and published by Palgrave Macmillan
This is the riveting and frightening story of ambitious, tempestuous and avowed anti-American Hugo Chávez, who is making waves through South America and being widely compared to Fidel Castro. Ex-paratrooper, outspoken socialist, and brash personality, Chávez is known for his stance against big business, fearless threats to the Bush administration, social reforms that have violently polarized his country, and claims that he will soon unite South America. As gas prices rise to unprecedented highs, Venezuela’s importance surges as the fifth largest oil exporter in the world. Nikolas Kozloff’s access to top advisors, members of the opposition, and leaders of Chávez’s own political movement allow him to present a comprehensive portrait of Chávez as he runs for re-election and moves into the global spotlight.
Other Books for COHA’s Readership:
Hugo! The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution
Authored by Bart Jones and published by Steerforth Press
Bart Jones knows Venezuela intimately and was an eyewitness to President Hugo Chávez’s rise to power. In Hugo! he tells the story of Chávez’s impoverished childhood, his military career and the decade of clandestine political activity that ended in a failed attempt to seize power in 1992. He describes the election campaign against a former Miss Universe that finally won Chávez the Presidency and the dramatic reversals of fortune that have marked it.
Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government
Authored by Gregory Wilpert and published by Verso Press
Unfinished Business: America and Cuba after the Cold War, 1989-2001
Authored by Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, and published by Cambridge University Press
In this first comprehensive study of U.S. policy toward Cuba in the post-Cold War era, Morris Morley and Chris McGillion draw on interviews with Bush and Clinton policymakers, congressional participants in the policy debate, and leaders of the anti-sanctions business community to argue that Bush and Clinton operated within the same Cold War framework that shaped the Cuba policy of their predecessors. They also demonstrate that U.S. policy after 1989 was driven principally by domestic imperatives. The result was the pursuit of a policy that had nothing to do with its stated objectives of promoting reforms in Cuba and everything to do with dismantling Castro’s regime. This study also addresses the international consequences: the extraterritorial applications of national laws to America’s allies; and a willingness to put in danger the operations of the global free trade regime. Few issues more starkly revealed the degree to which U.S. policymakers exhibited a striking lack of realism about America’s capacity to impose its will globally.
