Description
The author, a Roman Catholic priest from Wyoming, moved to one of the poorest barrios of Caracas, Venezuela in 1985. It was from there that he witnessed the momentous social and political events that Venezuelan President Chavez has dubbed the "Bolivarian Revolution," from the "Caracazo" anti-IMF rebellion of 1989 through the failed coup against Chavez in 2002. While the Venezuelan elites and their American allies have their voices broadcast through the corporate media, it is the voices of the Venezuelan poor that emerge from these anecdotal pages, providing insight into the popularity of the Bolivarian Revolution and President Chavez. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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No president today is more controversial than Venezuela's Hugo Chávez Frías. Elected in a landslide in 1998, he promised a peaceful revolution. That peaceful dream became a nightmare when Chávez was overthrown in a coup d'état in 2002. Surprisingly, he was brought back to power by his supporters, mostly barrio dwellers, within forty-eight hours. Although Chávez continues to be dogged by controversy, he stays in power because of these supporters who see themselves as active participants in a democratic revolution.As a former Catholic priest who has lived in Venezuela for the past twenty years and spent eight of those years in a cardboard-and-tin shack in one of Caracas' barrios, Charles Hardy is in a unique position to explain what is taking place. Cowboy in Caracas: A North American's Memoir of Venezuela's Democratic Revolution gives the reader insight into the Venezuelan reality, using an anecdotal presentation drawn from the writer's personal experiences.
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