Synopses & Reviews
Since being elected president in 1998, Hugo Chandaacute;vez has become the face of contemporary Venezuela and, more broadly, anticapitalist revolution. George Ciccariello-Maher contends that this focus on Chandaacute;vez has obscured the inner dynamics and historical development of the countryandrsquo;s Bolivarian Revolution. In
We Created Chandaacute;vez, by examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chandaacute;vez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a broader, more nuanced account of Chandaacute;vezandrsquo;s rise to power and the years of activism that preceded it.
Based on interviews with grassroots organizers, former guerrillas, members of neighborhood militias, and government officials, Ciccariello-Maher presents a new history of Venezuelan political activism, one told from below. Led by leftist guerrillas, women, Afro-Venezuelans, indigenous people, and students, the social movements he discusses have been struggling against corruption and repression since 1958. Ciccariello-Maher pays particular attention to the dynamic interplay between the Chandaacute;vez government, revolutionary social movements, and the Venezuelan people, recasting the Bolivarian Revolution as a long-term and multifaceted process of political transformation.
Review
andquot;We Created Chandaacute;vez provides a systematic, bottom-up approach to Venezuelan politics from 1958 to the present. It offers a much-needed new perspective on Hugo Chandaacute;vez's rise to power. Writing in a lively style and demonstrating a thorough command of the issues and personalities in recent Venezuelan history, George Ciccariello-Maher has produced a book essential to understanding the phenomenon of 'Chavismo,' which has attracted widespread interest throughout the world.andquot;andmdash;Steve Ellner, author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chandaacute;vez Phenomenon
Review
andquot;In the United States, accounts of Venezuela have been fixated on the figure of Hugo Chandaacute;vez. We Created Chandaacute;vez breaks with this obsession, instead showing the dynamic and contradictory relationship that exists between Venezuela's president and the social forces that gave rise to and sustain the government. It is required reading for anyone wishing to understand the internal dynamics of social change underway in Venezuela today.andquot;andmdash;Miguel Tinker Salas, author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela
Review
“Ciccariello-Maher’s history of the Venezuelan left is essential to understanding the Chávez era.” Dorothy Kronick
Review
“Terrific.” - Greg Grandin, The Nation
Review
andldquo;[A] crisply written social and political history of the critical decades leading up to Chandaacute;vezand#39;s election in 1998. . . . For those who want to see the revolution continue, Ciccariello-Maher has made a critical contribution to our understanding, which is in and of itself enough to recommend this book without reservation. But more than that, We Created Chandaacute;vez brilliantly demonstrates how social history scholarship can mine the lived experiences of rank-and-file activists and radical leaders for precious stones, and then set those gems in a visible and rigorous theoretical frame that allows us to see history in motion.andrdquo;
Review
“I've been looking for this book for years.” - Steve Henshall, Socialist Review
Review
andquot;In addition to providing readers with an irreplaceable genealogy of the Revolutionary Left in Venezuela and its role in the making of the present, We Created Chandaacute;vez deftly illustrates the tensions between constituent and constituted power that make the Bolivarian Revolution a dialectical process rather than a presidential term in office. We Created Chandaacute;vez is also a masterful contribution to a thankfully growing body of work responding to dominant portrayals of the Bolivarian process in Venezuela enraptured or enraged by the figure of el Comandante.andrdquo;
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“Terrific.” The New Republic
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“I've been looking for this book for years.” Todd Chretien - Socialist Worker
Review
“In We Created Chávez, George Ciccariello-Maher offers a masterful ‘people’s history’ of Venezuela…. Through Ciccariello-Maher’s analysis, a Venezuela easily and often ignored both by academia and by the popular press becomes visible. It is this Venezuela from which post-Chávez popular politics will be forged; Ciccariello-Maher offers valuable insight into what the coming years may bring.” Donald V. Kingsbury - Theory and Event
Review
andldquo;Ciccariello-Maherandrsquo;s history of the Venezuelan left is essential to understanding the Chandaacute;vez era.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Terrific.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Iand#39;ve been looking for this book for years.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;In We Created Chandaacute;vez, George Ciccariello-Maher offers a masterful andlsquo;peopleandrsquo;s historyandrsquo; of Venezuelaandhellip;. Through Ciccariello-Maherandrsquo;s analysis, a Venezuela easily and often ignored both by academia and by the popular press becomes visible. It is this Venezuela from which post-Chandaacute;vez popular politics will be forged; Ciccariello-Maher offers valuable insight into what the coming years may bring.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;We Created Chavez is likely to be a point of reference for anyone seeking to assess chavismo as a seminal case of popular resistance to neoliberal globalization, as well as its relevance to twenty-first-century socialism.andquot;
Review
andquot;If . . . you want an engaging book that, in the service of a revolutionist mythos, narrates the actions and ideas of many people often neglected by scholars, you may appreciate We Created Chavez.andquot;
Synopsis
This history of Venezuelan politics from below tells how militants, students, women, Afro-indigeneous peoples, and the working-class brought about Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution and, ultimately, brought Hugo Chand#225;vez to power.
About the Author
George Ciccariello-Maher is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Drexel University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Map of Venezuela xii
Introduction. What People? Whose History? 1
1. A Guerrilla History 22
2. Reconnecting with the Masses 45
3. Birth of the andquot;Tupamarosandquot; 67
First Interlude. The Caracazo: History Splits in Two 88
4. Sergio's Blood: Student Struggles from the University to the Streets 105
5. Manuelita's Boots: Women between Two Movements 126
6. Josand#233;Leonardo's Body and the Collapse of Mestizaje 146
Second Interlude. Every Eleventh Has Its Thirteenth 166
7. Venezuelan Workers: Aristocracy or Revolutionary Class? 180
8. Oligarchs Tremble! Peasant Struggles at the Margins of the State 200
9. A New Proletariat? Informal Labor and the Revolutionary Streets 218
Conclusion. Dual Power against the Magical State 234
Notes 257
Index 307