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Penguin Press
March 2013
On Sale: March 13, 2013
320 pages
ISBN: 1594204578
EAN: 9781594204579
Kindle: B008EKONCE
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
Hugo Chávez is a phenomenon. He has been compared to
Napoléon, Nasser, Perón, and Castro, but the truth is there
has never been a leader like him. He is democratically
elected, reigns like a monarch from a digital throne, and
provokes adoration and revulsion in equal measure. Future
historians will study his rule for what it says about the
early twenty-first century. How did a charismatic autocrat
seduce not just a nation but a significant part of world
opinion? How did he make people laugh and weep and applaud,
as if on command? And how does he continue to stay in power
despite the crumbling of Venezuela? When he
first came to power in 1999, Chávez promised a democratic
revolution to transform his country. In Venezuela and
elsewhere, he became a symbol of hope and freedom for his
people. Yet in his thirteen years as president, Chávez has
seized control of the hugely lucrative Venezuelan oil
industry, consolidated government authority under the
presidency, allowed basic government functions to wither,
jailed and excommunicated political opponents, created a
personality cult, and courted Castro and Ahmadinejad, all
while occupying much of Venezuela’s airwaves with his
long-running television show, ¡Alo Presidente!
In Comandante, acclaimed journalist Rory
Carroll breaches the walls of Miraflores Palace to tell the
inside story of Chávez's life and his political court in
Caracas. Based on interviews with ministers, aides,
courtiers, and citizens, this intimate piece of reportage
chronicles a unique experiment in power, which veers among
enlightenment, tyranny, comedy, and farce. Carroll
investigates the almost religious devotion of millions of
Venezuelans who still regard Chávez as a savior and the
loathing of those who brand him a dictator. In beautiful
prose that blends the lyricism and strangeness of magical
realism with the brutal, ugly truth of authoritarianism—a
powerful combination reminiscent of Ryszard Kapuscinski's
The Emperor—Rory Carroll has written a cautionary
tale for our times.
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