Issue 390 of New Internationalist

June 2006

The Venezuelan Revolution

President Hugo Chávez and oil - from the outside you get the general impression there's nothing else much worth knowing about Venezuela. You would never suppose that a sea change has been sweeping through this extraordinary place for more than seven years, throwing up awkward questions as it goes. Is peaceful revolution a contradiction in terms? Does the term 'Bolivarian' mean anything at all? Can economic orthodoxy and the American Empire be successfully defied? The *NI* reports from a country where ordinary people are living through far from ordinary times.