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Blogging the Revolution: Caracas Chronicles and the Hugo Chávez Era
For more than ten years, Caracas Chronicles has distilled Hugo Chavez's Venezuela for English-speaking readers, providing both context and a home for lively discussion. This compilation by its editors, Toro and Nagel, brings together their best work. With Hugo Chavez's passing, Venezuela enters a new era. The time has come to look back on a decade of unprecedented upheavals. From a sharply critical stance, Blogging the Revolution surveys the evolution of both chavismo and the opposition, the disintegration of Venezuela's public sphere, the political economy of the petrostate, and its impact on everyday life in the South American nation.
378 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 26, 2019
Important read. I feel like reading this gave me a much more complete understanding of the problem with Venezuela, and how trying to explain it is very much like trying to untangle a huge ball of twine.
The start and the last few chapters are very very good, I feel like stuff gets a bit muddled in the middle though, since there’s a lot of names of politicians and organisations that are dropped, i feel like i need to read it again and keep notes on who is who. The only thing keeping this book from 5 stars for me is a lack of a glossary. Still though, if you want an understanding of the situation in Venezuela, this is a good place to start.
The start and the last few chapters are very very good, I feel like stuff gets a bit muddled in the middle though, since there’s a lot of names of politicians and organisations that are dropped, i feel like i need to read it again and keep notes on who is who. The only thing keeping this book from 5 stars for me is a lack of a glossary. Still though, if you want an understanding of the situation in Venezuela, this is a good place to start.
April 17, 2013
From http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2013/...
I read Francisco Toro and Juan Cristobal Nagel's Blogging the Revolution, a book comprised of posts from their very well-known opposition Caracas Chronicles blog*. They started the blog in 2002 so there was plenty of material to choose from.
It's an odd exercise to review a book that is a collection of posts (jumping around chronologically), though certain patterns do show themselves in place of the kind of central argument you'd find in a conventional book. It's a good read, rich with detail (their interpretation of the coup events is an especially interesting read) and sometimes also with snark. Here are some themes I found in this not-exactly-book-blog-book:
First, Hugo Chávez's political use of oil revenue represents strong continuity with the past, even if the recipients are different. One of the nice things about the blog is the keen sense of history. Toro and Nagel really dislike Chávez, but they don't sugarcoat the past. You read about historians, novels, and all sorts of people the authors interview, both formally and informally. Even if you disagree with the posts, they are generally very thoughtful. The authors also don't tend to offer much hope that the opposition would do any better if it took power. They periodically come back to the question of how Venezuela can break out of it.
Second, past leaders were corrupt, but Chávez takes it to a new level. The corruption is supported by many anecdotes, though with less of the historical comparison (how much did the dominant parties shake people down for political support or money in the past?). From the neighborhood level to the top echelons of government, corruption abounds. Demonstrating that it is worse, however, doesn't always come out. Could it be that corruption also represents continuity?
Third, the country is moving toward authoritarianism. This tends to veer around, and the lack of chronological order of the posts exacerbates it. There are discussions about how totalitarianism is a totally inappropriate term, then later "we really do have all the characteristics of leftist totalitarian communications here" (electronic page 142). But there is a lot of interesting discussion about the disjuncture between the precise wording of the Venezuelan constitution and the way politics actually works.
I like the idea of taking a blog and trying to contextualize it. If a few people write for years, they do develop certain ideas and themes that persist, and they help orient unfamiliar readers. If the blog is, and this one is, then it's worth the read.
* FWIW, I was given an ebook version for free.
I read Francisco Toro and Juan Cristobal Nagel's Blogging the Revolution, a book comprised of posts from their very well-known opposition Caracas Chronicles blog*. They started the blog in 2002 so there was plenty of material to choose from.
It's an odd exercise to review a book that is a collection of posts (jumping around chronologically), though certain patterns do show themselves in place of the kind of central argument you'd find in a conventional book. It's a good read, rich with detail (their interpretation of the coup events is an especially interesting read) and sometimes also with snark. Here are some themes I found in this not-exactly-book-blog-book:
First, Hugo Chávez's political use of oil revenue represents strong continuity with the past, even if the recipients are different. One of the nice things about the blog is the keen sense of history. Toro and Nagel really dislike Chávez, but they don't sugarcoat the past. You read about historians, novels, and all sorts of people the authors interview, both formally and informally. Even if you disagree with the posts, they are generally very thoughtful. The authors also don't tend to offer much hope that the opposition would do any better if it took power. They periodically come back to the question of how Venezuela can break out of it.
Second, past leaders were corrupt, but Chávez takes it to a new level. The corruption is supported by many anecdotes, though with less of the historical comparison (how much did the dominant parties shake people down for political support or money in the past?). From the neighborhood level to the top echelons of government, corruption abounds. Demonstrating that it is worse, however, doesn't always come out. Could it be that corruption also represents continuity?
Third, the country is moving toward authoritarianism. This tends to veer around, and the lack of chronological order of the posts exacerbates it. There are discussions about how totalitarianism is a totally inappropriate term, then later "we really do have all the characteristics of leftist totalitarian communications here" (electronic page 142). But there is a lot of interesting discussion about the disjuncture between the precise wording of the Venezuelan constitution and the way politics actually works.
I like the idea of taking a blog and trying to contextualize it. If a few people write for years, they do develop certain ideas and themes that persist, and they help orient unfamiliar readers. If the blog is, and this one is, then it's worth the read.
* FWIW, I was given an ebook version for free.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews