Bart Jones knows Venezuela intimately and was an eyewitness to President Hugo Chavez's rise to power. In Hugo he tells the story of Chavez'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 Chavez the Presidency and the dramatic reversals of fortune that have marked it: the struggle to reform the Venezuelan economy, the coup attempt of 2002 in which he was kidnapped and faced summary execution, and the oil industry strike that followed. The full stories of many of these episodes have never been told before - in English or Spanish. Hugo is scrupulously researched and sourced, and as compelling to read as a good novel. The ruling elites and popular media in Venezuela and the United States oversimplify by casting Chavez as the heir to Fidel Castro, and more often than not, they have their facts wrong. The truth is more complex, and more interesting. The leader of one of the most powerful economies in Latin America is determined to try to use his country's wealth to help the poor majority. The Chavez that emerges from Jones' account is neither a plaster saint nor a revolutionary tyrant. He is a master politician — democratically elected to the presidency three times — an inspired improviser, a Bolivarian nationalist and an unashamed socialist. His policies have brought him into conflict with the IMF and the World Bank, the major oil companies and the Bush White House. By the time he arrived at the United Nations in September 2006 he had become a figure on the world stage. When he declared that 'the devil came here yesterday ... the President of the United States', it was clear that, right or wrong, one man was taking on the might of most powerful nation on earth, in conscious imitation of the Liberator, Simon Bolivar.

"'While opinions of Venezuelan president Hugo Chvez vary tremendously on a global scale, there are few defenses of him available in the United States. This biography by Bart Jones, a former AP correspondent from Venezuela, attempts to level the ground. Without taking a political stance, Jones provides a nuanced account of the Venezuelan leader's life, creating a portrait that is, if not sympathetic, certainly more balanced than previous ones. For example, when Chvez characterized President Bush as the devil at the U.N. in 2006, most American news sources presented it as a crude and clownlike gesture. According to Jones, Chvez is hardly just a jester, but uses vulgarity to remind his friends and his enemies of his humble beginnings, as well as to win a tremendous amount of publicity. Jones's precise and entertaining account moves smoothly through Chvez's beginnings up to his current position, making Venezuelan history accessible. (Sept. 4)' Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Venezuelans once almost universally held former president Romulo Betancourt, who led their country's transition from military rule in the 1950s, in high esteem. When I visited Caracas last December to cover the presidential elections, however, supporters of Hugo Chavez spoke disparagingly of the politician who used to be called the father of Venezuelan democracy. 'Betancourt was a fake man who gave... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) us a fake democracy,' one voter in the slums of Caracas told me. 'It wasn't until Chavez that we had a president who looked out for us.'

In recent years, Chavez has challenged the established order around the world, denouncing President Bush as 'the devil' at the United Nations, lionizing Cuban leader Fidel Castro as a 'father' on a national newscast and embracing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a 'brother' in Tehran. But it is at home in Venezuela where he has truly upended the political system. The poor adore him. The wealthy detest him, his socialist policies and his soak-the-rich rhetoric. After nearly a decade in office, he holds an iron grip on power in the country with the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East.

Chavez's rise has a made-for-Hollywood quality. His childhood home bore a roof of palm leaves and lacked running water. Classmates mocked him for not wearing proper shoes. On the streets he sold aranitas (papaya sweets) prepared by the grandmother who raised him. Yet Chavez always dreamed big. At first, he wanted to be a professional baseball player. Then, as a young military officer, he confided to a friend that he would be president. Roughly 20 years later, after leading a failed coup and spending two years in jail, he achieved that goal, winning election in 1998.

Two biographies offer complementary, rather than competing, views of the Chavez phenomenon. Venezuelan journalist Cristina Marcano and her husband, novelist Alberto Barrera Tyszka, published 'Hugo Chavez' in Spanish four years ago; Random House has just released a clunky English translation. A newer offering is 'Hugo!' by Bart Jones, a Newsday reporter who spent eight years in Venezuela, mainly as a correspondent for the Associated Press.

Both books are well reported and offer valuable insight into Chavez's background and motivation. Jones provides a superb description of the economic inequities that helped create the conditions for a populist such as Chavez to come to power. Marcano and Tyszka, meanwhile, focus on the president's psychology, plumbing his strained relationship with his mother and his lust for the spotlight. According to Chavez's former psychologist, he has a need 'to be listened to, paid attention to, admired, even idolized.' His former mistress says he has become so narcissistic and self-involved that she no longer recognizes the man she was linked to for nine years.

Neither book, however, can be considered definitive. 'Hugo Chavez' is dated: Readers will be surprised to read such assertions as 'When it comes to the oil business, Chavez does not scream, "Yankee go home!"' given that he booted several U.S. oil companies out of Venezuela this year.

Jones, meanwhile, may come across as a Chavez partisan. In some ways, this is a healthy corrective: As 'Hugo!' points out, mainstream press coverage is often hostile to the Venezuelan president. Still, Jones ignores or soft-pedals allegations about Chavez's free spending, womanizing and tolerance of corruption. His inner circle — commonly referred to as the boliburguesia, a combination of 'Bolivarian' and 'bourgeoisie' — has built mansions in the priciest neighborhoods of Caracas, raising questions about how government salaries could finance such extravagance.

Where Jones truly excels is in his observations of Venezuelan society and the outsized role oil has played in molding the national character. During boom periods — the late 1970s, for example, and today — some Venezuelans live large. But while black gold may have swelled the national coffers, it has also tied the country's fortunes to an economic rollercoaster and warped Venezuelans' values, rewarding aggressiveness and street smarts rather than a strong work ethic. 'Some people called it the "pinata culture,"' Jones writes, 'where the "candy" or the money from oil revenues spills to the floor after the pinata is broken open and everyone grabs what they can in a free-for-all.'

Many poor Venezuelans felt they were never invited to the party. And with good reason: Even as billions of dollars gushed into the country in the 1970s, most lived in penury. The rich, meanwhile, did very well; the country's per capita ownership of private jets is one of the highest in the world.

This gross inequity created an opportunity for a man of the people to emerge. As Marcano and Tyszka put it, 'The root of Chavez's power resides in the religious and emotional bond he has forged with the popular sectors of the country.' He calls his social programs misiones ('missions'), and they provide a broad assortment of services for slum dwellers, from subsidized meals to education.

That said, Chavez would not have been reelected by a 26-point margin last December if oil prices weren't sky high. The windfall of cash — last year alone, the state oil company's revenues topped $100 billion — has not only shored up goodwill at home, but has expanded Venezuela's influence across the Americas. Its oil shipments to Cuba are a godsend for Castro. Chavez has also spread his petroleum largesse to allies in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

After securing another six-year term last December, Chavez called for the constitution to be amended so he could remain in office indefinitely. The document will almost certainly be tailored to his specifications, and the authors of both books offer predictions of what the next phase of Chavez's presidency could hold. Jones speculates that if Chavez does not open up his immediate circle and allow other, critical viewpoints to emerge, his 'revolution' will founder. Marcano and Tyszka point out that Chavez's most ambitious programs, both in Venezuela and abroad, have been facilitated by the 'sweet cash' from oil exports. For now, he has virtually free rein to nationalize businesses, consolidate power and offer international aid. But Venezuelans tend to be more critical of their leaders when cash is short. Chavez indisputably has forged a strong bond with his country's poorest citizens, but his standing may be more dependent on the price of oil than he would like to admit. Someday, his reputation may suffer the fate of Betancourt's.

Alexandra Starr, a former Organization of American States fellow in Caracas, is a 2007 Milena Jesenska fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria.

" Reviewed by Alexandra Starr, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Hugo is a work of narrative nonfiction for the general reader by an American journalist who knows the country intimately and who witnessed Chá vez’ s rise to power. This up-to-the-minute political biography provides extensive new information about Chá vez and the modern history of a country that is one of the world’ s top producers of both oil and beauty queens. In dramatic fashion Hugo gives full accounts of Chá vez’ s impoverished childhood, his years in the West Point of Venezuela, the discovery of his guiding light, Simon Bolivar, his secret, decade-long conspiracy in the military, the 1989 massacre that shocked the nation and propelled his movement into action, the 1992 coup that lifted him from obscurity to fame, his two years in prison, his road to the presidency as he fought off the challenge of a former Miss Universe, the 2002 coup in which he was kidnapped and nearly killed, and a strike a few months later that shut down the oil industry and nearly strangled the economy. The full stories of many of these episodes have never been told before – in English or Spanish. Based in part on interviews with key people in Chá vez’ s conspiracy and his presidency, the book gets at “ Who is Hugo Chá vez?” and “ What is Venezuela?” unlike any previous work. This balanced account will enable readers to understand the controversial man behind the famous September 2006 UN speech in which Chá vez called George Bush “ the devil.”