The best books to understand what is happening in Venezuela

From a history of its oil trade to a classic novel by a former president, here’s the books you need to read amid Venezuela’s current political turmoil

Riots in the streets, inflation exceeding 1 million percent, two men claiming to be the rightful president and warnings of civil war – Venezuela is making a lot of headlines, none of them good. Six years after the death of Hugo Chávez died, when power passed to his protege Nicolás Maduro, the economy has imploded, democratic trappings have been stripped away, millions have fled the country and Donald Trump is threatening to aid in ousting Maduro and establish the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, as president.

Raul Gallegos’s Crude Nation shows how what was once South America’s most stable, wealthy country swerved towards the abyss. A former economic journalist who lived in Caracas, Gallegos dissects the nationalisations, expropriations, subsidies and controls on prices and currencies that warped the economy during Chávez’s 12-year rule. Petrol became virtually free while milk, sugar, coffee and toilet paper routinely vanished from stores. Gallegos blends analysis with reportage, including a picaresque roadtrip with a Che Guevara lookalike – to show how Maduro inherited a mess and made it worse.

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from Books | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2BcprI6

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