Venezuela's Collapse:
The Long Story of How Things Fell Apart
Carlos Lizarralde
How did Latin America's exceptional democracy become a nearly failed state? Why would a leader firmly in control plunge one of the planet's richest countries into a humanitarian crisis?
Conventional wisdom blames the wicked madness of a populist who squandered an oil fortune. Venezuela's Collapse offers an alternative account that places race, ethnicity, and the conflict over resources and power at the center of the Hugo Chavez story.
Venezuela's Collapse chronicles 500 years of demographic, cultural, and economic strands that came together in 1998 as the country elected a dashing new President. He promised his country the moon only to usher in an unimaginable catastrophe. Tracing the dismantling of the liberal state, the ransacking of public and private enterprises, and the emergence of a feudal world of violence, hunger, and disease, Venezuela's Collapse offers a compelling argument about the historical nature of the Chavista years until 2019.
Venezuela's uncertain future will be determined by the long and conflicted past that fueled the Bolivarian Revolution. Collapse offers a road map to decode the years ahead.
Venezuela's Collapse will be published March 19, 2024.