Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know® PDF
Preview Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know®
VENEZUELA WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW® VENEZUELA WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW® MIGUEL TINKER SALAS 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. “What Everyone Needs to Know” is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–0–19–978329–8 (hbk); 978–0–19–978328–1 (pbk) 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Luna Isabel and Nylen Diego, may you continue to always ask por qué (why)? CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XI GLOSSARY XV Introduction 1 Part One Venezuela Before Oil 15 What groups lived in Venezuela before the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century? 15 What is the origin of the name “Venezuela”? 17 How did Spanish colonial rule mark Venezuela? 18 What was the character of race relations in colonial society? 22 What was colonial society like for women? 24 What sparked the independence movement? 25 Why did the first movement for independence fail? 27 Why is the figure of Simón Bolívar so important and what is his legacy in Venezuela? 30 How is Bolívar remembered today? 33 What happened in Venezuelan politics and society after Bolívar? 35 Why did José Antonio Páez emerge as the central figure after independence? 37 viii Contents Why couldn’t elites forge a consensus? 40 What was the importance of the Liberal Party? 41 Were the Federal Wars of 1858–1863 inevitable? 43 How did post-Federal War Venezuela evolve? 46 Who was Cipriano Castro and how did the Andeans come to dominate Venezuela? 48 Why did European powers blockade Venezuela in 1902? 51 What were social and racial conditions like on the eve of the twentieth century? 54 Part Two Venezuela in the Twentieth Century 59 When was oil discovered? 59 What impact did oil production have on Venezuelan society? 62 Who was Juan Vicente Gómez and how did he rule Venezuela for nearly three decades? 66 What was Venezuela’s experience with immigration following the discovery of oil? 69 What was the Generation of 1928 and who was Rómulo Betancourt? 70 How did Venezuela change after Gómez’s death? 72 How did López Contreras address new political demands? 74 What was the significance of new political forces that emerged in the mid-twentieth century? 75 How did World War II affect Venezuela? 76 What was the importance of the 1943 oil legislation? 77 What was the state of race relations at mid-century? 79 Who replaced Medina Angarita? 80 What was the Trienio (1945–1948) and what is its legacy in Venezuela? 82 Who was Romulo Gallegos and why is he so important in postwar Venezuela? 84 Who was Marcos Pérez Jiménez and how did he come to power? 85 What kind of advances did Venezuela make in the 1950s? 87 Contents ix How did resistance to Pérez Jiménez develop? 90 What was the Pacto de Punto Fijo? 92 What was the outcome of Venezuela’s 1958 democratic elections? 93 What challenges did Betancourt confront? 94 How was Venezuela governed under the Punto Fijo pact? 97 Did the election of Rafael Caldera alter how Venezuela was ruled? 98 What was the Gran Venezuela Project? 101 When did Venezuela nationalize its oil industry? 104 How had oil transformed Venezuela by the 1980s? 106 What was the legacy of nationalization and the Gran Venezuela Project after 1978? 110 Did a shift in government alleviate the crisis? 113 What was the Caracazo and how did it influence Venezuelan politics? 117 What motivated the coups of 1992? 122 Who was Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías? 123 How did the Venezuelan government try to recuperate from two failed coups? 126 Part Three O il and Revolution: The Rise of Hugo Chávez 132 How did Chávez, a former coup leader, win the 1998 presidential election? 132 Why did Venezuela draft a new constitution in 1999 and what provisions did it include? 136 What difficulties did the new constitution face? 139 How did the election of Chávez transform foreign relations? 140 How does Washington view developments in Venezuela? 143 What is the importance of regional integration? 144 How did oil policy in Venezuela change after Chávez’s election? 147 Why did conservatives resort to a coup against the government in April 2002? 151
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