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Beneath Venezuelan soil lies an ocean of crude—the world’s largest reserves—an oil patch that shaped the nature of the global energy business. Unfortunately, a dysfunctional anti-American, leftist government controls this vast resource and has used its wealth to foster voter support, ultimately wreaking economic havoc. Crude Nation reveals the ways in which this mismanagement has led to Venezuela’s economic ruin and turned the country into a cautionary tale for the world. Raúl Gallegos, a former Caracas-based oil correspondent, paints a picture both vivid and analytical of the country’s economic decline, the government’s foolhardy economic policies, and the wrecked lives of Vene...
"Crude Nation tells the story of how ruinous mismanagement has resulted in the economic implosion of Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world"--
This book details the diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela during a pivotal time in world history. Through the utilization of archival materials and newspaper accounts, the author highlights the words of the major participants to demonstrate how the two nations worked together – sometimes hand-in-hand, sometimes face-to-face – to prevent the European War from spreading to the Western Hemisphere. Despite several efforts to develop hemispheric unity during the War, Venezuelan leaders perceived the policy of neutrality to be in the best interest of the country's national sovereignty. This book explores the personalities of the chief executives and selected diplomats ...
We no longer inhabit a world governed by international coordination, a unified NATO bloc, or an American hegemon. Traditionally, the decline of one empire leads to a restoration in the balance of power, via a struggle among rival systems of order. Yet this dynamic is surprisingly absent today; instead, the superpowers have all, at times, sought to promote what Jason Pack terms the 'Enduring Disorder'. He contends that Libya's ongoing conflict-more so than the civil wars in Yemen, Syria, Venezuela or Ukraine-constitutes the ideal microcosm in which to identify the salient features of this new era of geopolitics. The country's post-Qadhafi trajectory has been molded by the stark absence of coh...
A groundbreaking history of oil and it's importance to US politics, finance, militarism and consumerism from an award-winning author and scholar This expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse', Crude Capitalism uncovers the surprising ways that oil is woven into the fabric of our modern world: the rise of an American-centered global order; the breakdown of Empire and anti-colonial rebellion; contemporary finance and US dollar hegemony; debt and militarism; and the emergence of new forms of synthetic consumption. Much more than an energy source o...
This 256-page publication includes a comprehensive examination of the main trends in Latin America’s second-largest economy during an unprecedented period of uncertainty and change. To understand how this economy performed during this period and how it might recover, we conducted a year-long investigation that includes interviews with top executives and officials from the public and private sectors.
"Beginning with the oil blowout in 1922 that is considered the moment that marked Venezuela's entry into a 'modern' era, Refined Material explores the integral relationship between Venezuelan oil industry and artistic production. In this groundbreaking study, Sean Nesselrode Moncada examines Venezuela's mid-century art and architecture in an argument that reinforces the inextricability of the rise of a capitalist and centralized state from life, activism, and art. Oil provided the crucible for national reinvention, ushering in a period of dizzying optimism and bitter disillusion as artists, architects, graphic designers, activists, and critics sought to define the terms of modernity. Looking at five different but interrelated case studies--a print magazine, a planned housing community, a luxury hotel, a kinetic museum installation, and a documentary film--this book brings forth a novel reading to the renowned Venezuelan modernist canon and reveals how the logic of refinement conditioned the terms of development and redefined our relationship to nature, matter, and one another"--
Media Power in Central America explores the political and cultural interplay between the media and those in power in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Nicaragua. Highlighting the subtle strangulation of opposition media voices in the region, the authors show how the years since the guerrilla wars have not yielded the free media systems that some had expected. Rick Rockwell and Noreene Janus examine the region country by country and deal with the specific conditions of government-sponsored media repression, economic censorship, corruption, and consumer trends that shape the political landscape. Challenging the notion of the media as a democratizing force, Media Power in Central America shows how governments use the media to block democratic reforms and outlines the difficulties of playing watchdog to rulers who use the media as a tool of power.
The second-largest economy in Latin America, Mexico seems poised to enter a new growth phase as the government of Enrique Peña Nieto implements radical changes in a number of sectors across the economy. The reforms, aimed at raising the competitiveness of the Mexican economy, have the potential to establish Mexico’s position as a regional powerhouse. Optimism surrounding the recent wave of reforms, coupled with a stable macroeconomic environment and an improved credit rating from international agencies, has placed Mexico centre-stage. Despite slower than anticipated growth of 1.1% in 2013, a wave of reforms affecting a range of sectors is expected to bring a new dynamism to the economy an...