What do you think?
Rate this book
Things Are Never So Bad That They Can't Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela
Named Foreign Affairs Best Books of 2022 and the National Endowment for Democracy Notable Books of 2022
"Richly reported...a thorough and important history." -Tim Padgett, The New York Times
A nuanced and deeply-reported account of the collapse of Venezuela, and what it could mean for the rest of the world.
Today, Venezuela is a country of perpetual crisis―a country of rolling blackouts, nearly worthless currency, uncertain supply of water and food, and extreme poverty. In the same land where oil―the largest reserve in the world―sits so close to the surface that it bubbles from the ground, where gold and other mineral resources are abundant, and where the government spends billions of dollars on public works projects that go abandoned, the supermarket shelves are bare and the hospitals have no medicine. Twenty percent of the population has fled, creating the largest refugee exodus in the world, rivaling only war-torn Syria’s crisis. Venezuela’s collapse affects all of Latin America, as well as the United States and the international community.
Republicans like to point to Venezuela as the perfect example of the emptiness of socialism, but it is a better model for something the destructive potential of charismatic populist leadership. The ascent of Hugo Chávez was a precursor to the emergence of strongmen that can now be seen all over the world, and the success of the corrupt economy he presided over only lasted while oil sold for more than $100 a barrel. Chávez’s regime and policies, which have been reinforced under Nicolás Maduro, squandered abundant resources and ultimately bankrupted the country.
Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse is a fluid combination of journalism, memoir, and history that chronicles Venezuela’s tragic journey from petro-riches to poverty. Author William Neuman witnessed it all firsthand while living in Caracas and serving as the New York Times Andes Region Bureau Chief. His book paints a clear-eyed, riveting, and highly personal portrait of the crisis unfolding in real time, with all of its tropical surrealism, extremes of wealth and suffering, and gripping drama. It is also a heartfelt reflection of the country’s great beauty and vibrancy―and the energy, passion, and humor of its people, even under the most challenging circumstances.
"Richly reported...a thorough and important history." -Tim Padgett, The New York Times
A nuanced and deeply-reported account of the collapse of Venezuela, and what it could mean for the rest of the world.
Today, Venezuela is a country of perpetual crisis―a country of rolling blackouts, nearly worthless currency, uncertain supply of water and food, and extreme poverty. In the same land where oil―the largest reserve in the world―sits so close to the surface that it bubbles from the ground, where gold and other mineral resources are abundant, and where the government spends billions of dollars on public works projects that go abandoned, the supermarket shelves are bare and the hospitals have no medicine. Twenty percent of the population has fled, creating the largest refugee exodus in the world, rivaling only war-torn Syria’s crisis. Venezuela’s collapse affects all of Latin America, as well as the United States and the international community.
Republicans like to point to Venezuela as the perfect example of the emptiness of socialism, but it is a better model for something the destructive potential of charismatic populist leadership. The ascent of Hugo Chávez was a precursor to the emergence of strongmen that can now be seen all over the world, and the success of the corrupt economy he presided over only lasted while oil sold for more than $100 a barrel. Chávez’s regime and policies, which have been reinforced under Nicolás Maduro, squandered abundant resources and ultimately bankrupted the country.
Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse is a fluid combination of journalism, memoir, and history that chronicles Venezuela’s tragic journey from petro-riches to poverty. Author William Neuman witnessed it all firsthand while living in Caracas and serving as the New York Times Andes Region Bureau Chief. His book paints a clear-eyed, riveting, and highly personal portrait of the crisis unfolding in real time, with all of its tropical surrealism, extremes of wealth and suffering, and gripping drama. It is also a heartfelt reflection of the country’s great beauty and vibrancy―and the energy, passion, and humor of its people, even under the most challenging circumstances.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 15, 2022
281 people are currently reading
3566 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
November 28, 2022
William Neuman describes the sorry situation in Venezuela and shows the economic, social and political forces that created it. He shows how the subtitle's (which should be the title) designation of the country in a state of “collapse” is sadly apt.
The reader’s tour of modern day Venezuela begins with electricity, told through the lives of people living with service that comes and goes without warning. It can be on or off for a number of hours and can be off for whole days. Light at night is considered a luxury. The sporadic nature of “lux” governs people’s lives. Neuman takes you inside the electrical plant, interviewing overworked staff who patch things together since there has been no money for maintenance or replacement parts for a number of years.
Darkness exacerbates the looting problem. Once a loot starts, crowds join in. Neuman interviews people who have watched their life’s work wrecked by mobs and there is no police service to call.
Caracas, a city of 700,000, has one functioning fire truck. Formerly middle class people are worried about food and the statistics about those dying of malnutrition bear out their worries. Medical services are virtually unobtainable and if you are fortunate enough to scrape together money to get medicine from Colombia, the border guards will take it.
There is still an upper middle class traveling to the US (on the few flights per week in a decaying airport) and buying luxury goods. Presumably these are the cronies of Maduro.
Venezuela should be among the world’s top oil producers.
Neuman explains how it got this bad. He gives a quick survey of the country’s experience with democracy and then explains the Chavez and Maduro eras. It is a story of oil wealth, currency schemes, propaganda, and a low priority on governance. Maduro took Chavez’s cronyism and opposition imprisonment to new levels and added terror. Another element is that the population, expecting its oil wealth and the give-aways of the Chavez era would go on forever, lacked planning and ambition.
Some, even while they are suffering, don't seem to know what hit them. They remain "Chavistas" and would vote for Maduro again. The opposition is not united. The “Don’t vote” campaign did not produce the result they wanted (just like in Iran or in Trump’s anti-mail ballot in campaign); but strangely resulted in two presidents for this one country.
This is a very informative book. I highly recommend it not just for those interested in Venezuela, but also for those interested in democracy, since it is a case study of how democracy can be lost.
The reader’s tour of modern day Venezuela begins with electricity, told through the lives of people living with service that comes and goes without warning. It can be on or off for a number of hours and can be off for whole days. Light at night is considered a luxury. The sporadic nature of “lux” governs people’s lives. Neuman takes you inside the electrical plant, interviewing overworked staff who patch things together since there has been no money for maintenance or replacement parts for a number of years.
Darkness exacerbates the looting problem. Once a loot starts, crowds join in. Neuman interviews people who have watched their life’s work wrecked by mobs and there is no police service to call.
Caracas, a city of 700,000, has one functioning fire truck. Formerly middle class people are worried about food and the statistics about those dying of malnutrition bear out their worries. Medical services are virtually unobtainable and if you are fortunate enough to scrape together money to get medicine from Colombia, the border guards will take it.
There is still an upper middle class traveling to the US (on the few flights per week in a decaying airport) and buying luxury goods. Presumably these are the cronies of Maduro.
Venezuela should be among the world’s top oil producers.
Neuman explains how it got this bad. He gives a quick survey of the country’s experience with democracy and then explains the Chavez and Maduro eras. It is a story of oil wealth, currency schemes, propaganda, and a low priority on governance. Maduro took Chavez’s cronyism and opposition imprisonment to new levels and added terror. Another element is that the population, expecting its oil wealth and the give-aways of the Chavez era would go on forever, lacked planning and ambition.
Some, even while they are suffering, don't seem to know what hit them. They remain "Chavistas" and would vote for Maduro again. The opposition is not united. The “Don’t vote” campaign did not produce the result they wanted (just like in Iran or in Trump’s anti-mail ballot in campaign); but strangely resulted in two presidents for this one country.
This is a very informative book. I highly recommend it not just for those interested in Venezuela, but also for those interested in democracy, since it is a case study of how democracy can be lost.
May 25, 2022
This is going to be the most frightening read in non-fiction this year. His first person experience stories alone! The changes he observed within such a period of boom to total bust!
Here he does a more than credible job of/for the history of Venezuela and its pattern of beliefs both in governmental power and economics within the cultural effusion habit and affection for power men. The entire last century is an economics tale that should be taught as much as that of Marx or Sowell or any school of definitive agenda for both prosper and/or innovation to action, physical progress.
His research and exactness within Venezuela's physical, productive, cultural, intellectual processes are immense. He was embedded.
Every chapter is a further window. I was horrified at the real people / friends/ associates/ workers etc. stories. Especially those last 2 sainted humans trying to hold the power grids in operation.
This is what you get when you empower a government who knows nearly nothing of business or real life production processes and maintaining to run utilities. Or who live and believe in the magical spend all you have and then start again idea of "sharing". Which is only long term and short term theft. Both.
Living literally on boards and branches over the petroleum leeching from the ground's crude piles! I thought of the Beverly Hillbillies song even before he mentioned it. Beyond sad, this is horrific.
And it's what we can all expect if we in other countries begin to believe in the absolute naivety of socialism.
He loses the star when he surmises and assumes about the "outside of Venezuela motives, movers, trade icons" and other countries' basic economics. He knows Venezuela. But his bias about how the world works is far behind in that telling territory. Or for his judgments. Some of them are almost totally wrong. Almost delusional.
Read the first chapter if you don't have the stomach for this in total. The first 5 and 6 days of electric blackouts with rioting must have been hell on Earth. And some of the other chapters in detail are worse. It's hard to believe how rapid the collapse too. And most of the remaining people STILL believe the government can provide for "all they need" or would wont. Sick, sick human psychology and identity owning, as well. It's always "somebody else's" job, duty, worry etc.
You won't have to go on any reducing diet if you plan to live in present day Venezuela.
Here he does a more than credible job of/for the history of Venezuela and its pattern of beliefs both in governmental power and economics within the cultural effusion habit and affection for power men. The entire last century is an economics tale that should be taught as much as that of Marx or Sowell or any school of definitive agenda for both prosper and/or innovation to action, physical progress.
His research and exactness within Venezuela's physical, productive, cultural, intellectual processes are immense. He was embedded.
Every chapter is a further window. I was horrified at the real people / friends/ associates/ workers etc. stories. Especially those last 2 sainted humans trying to hold the power grids in operation.
This is what you get when you empower a government who knows nearly nothing of business or real life production processes and maintaining to run utilities. Or who live and believe in the magical spend all you have and then start again idea of "sharing". Which is only long term and short term theft. Both.
Living literally on boards and branches over the petroleum leeching from the ground's crude piles! I thought of the Beverly Hillbillies song even before he mentioned it. Beyond sad, this is horrific.
And it's what we can all expect if we in other countries begin to believe in the absolute naivety of socialism.
He loses the star when he surmises and assumes about the "outside of Venezuela motives, movers, trade icons" and other countries' basic economics. He knows Venezuela. But his bias about how the world works is far behind in that telling territory. Or for his judgments. Some of them are almost totally wrong. Almost delusional.
Read the first chapter if you don't have the stomach for this in total. The first 5 and 6 days of electric blackouts with rioting must have been hell on Earth. And some of the other chapters in detail are worse. It's hard to believe how rapid the collapse too. And most of the remaining people STILL believe the government can provide for "all they need" or would wont. Sick, sick human psychology and identity owning, as well. It's always "somebody else's" job, duty, worry etc.
You won't have to go on any reducing diet if you plan to live in present day Venezuela.
April 3, 2022
Quick Take: For the Venezuelan people, things are never so bad they can’t get worse.
Things are Never so Bad They Can’t Get Worse by William Neumann is the heart wrenching story of Venezuela. A few years ago, I visited Peru. The friend I was visiting pointed out some Venezuelans working in different industries and said “these are Venezuelans, they have left their country and come to Peru to find work. They want to go back but there is nothing to go back to.” Listening to this book, I often felt like I was listening to a post-apocalyptic tale.
In economics, there’s a theory called the Resource Curse. It describes how resource wealth perverts the incentives in a country. Resource money goes to the government and the government hands it out to the people which in turn creates a powerful centralized government, this is the story of Venezuela.
When Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999 the country was in the middle of an oil boom. Millions of dollars were coming into the government and Chavez redistributed that money to the people. Chavez maintained his power by pushing out anyone who might outshine him. By the time Chavez died in 2013, the price of oil had collapsed, and the money was gone. No more than 3 million dollars was saved during the boom times, leaving the country broke.
In 2016, the lights went out. After years of disinvestment the electric grid went down never to fully come on again. Today, corruption is endemic. Hospitals, bridges, railways started and never finished. Money meant to go to the betterment of the people gone never to be seen again. In 2018, there were so many refugees fleeing Venezuela, it was second only to Syria which was in the midst of a civil war.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the global community. This book was well written and researched.
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Non-Fiction
Things are Never so Bad They Can’t Get Worse by William Neumann is the heart wrenching story of Venezuela. A few years ago, I visited Peru. The friend I was visiting pointed out some Venezuelans working in different industries and said “these are Venezuelans, they have left their country and come to Peru to find work. They want to go back but there is nothing to go back to.” Listening to this book, I often felt like I was listening to a post-apocalyptic tale.
In economics, there’s a theory called the Resource Curse. It describes how resource wealth perverts the incentives in a country. Resource money goes to the government and the government hands it out to the people which in turn creates a powerful centralized government, this is the story of Venezuela.
When Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999 the country was in the middle of an oil boom. Millions of dollars were coming into the government and Chavez redistributed that money to the people. Chavez maintained his power by pushing out anyone who might outshine him. By the time Chavez died in 2013, the price of oil had collapsed, and the money was gone. No more than 3 million dollars was saved during the boom times, leaving the country broke.
In 2016, the lights went out. After years of disinvestment the electric grid went down never to fully come on again. Today, corruption is endemic. Hospitals, bridges, railways started and never finished. Money meant to go to the betterment of the people gone never to be seen again. In 2018, there were so many refugees fleeing Venezuela, it was second only to Syria which was in the midst of a civil war.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the global community. This book was well written and researched.
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Non-Fiction
March 7, 2025
4.5 stars
An informative, accessible and compelling study of life and politics in today’s Venezuela, from a journalist who spent several years in the country. It takes as its focal point the blackouts of 2019: the point at which the country had deteriorated so much (economically and in terms of functionality of services and living conditions) that the government couldn’t even keep the lights on.
Rather than a chronological account, the book circles back to the same events several times, but in a way that generally reinforces and adds context to the previous bits rather than confusing them. Early on we get more human-interest stories of regular people’s lives, later some economic analysis, and then a higher-level look at the politics in both Venezuela and the U.S. that led to this situation.
I found it all very engaging despite the often bleak subject matter. Neuman interviews people from diverse walks of life, from slumdwellers to hotel managers to the guy who unsuccessfully declared himself president and the U.S. diplomats and analysts involved. And he travels around the country to get a sense of different places (while the cities are struggling, the mining areas are nightmarish).
There’s also a lot of economic and political analysis, which is digestible for the casual reader. Neuman notes that Venezuela’s economy was mostly strong under Chavez, because China’s development meant oil was priced high; Venezuela became entirely dependent on a single commodity whose price later fell, while squandering much of the money that came in with projects that looked good on TV but were often never finished and provided no benefit to the people (Neuman calls it “fauxcialism” at one point). Chavez’s government also allowed people to swindle the government left and right. Businesspeople took massive advantage of currency policies and only pretended to import things, while key positions depended on cronyism rather than competence. Everything got worse under Chavez’s successor, Maduro, who doubled down on autocratic tendencies as the economy got worse. The coup de grace happened when the first Trump administration jumped straight to last-resort sanctions in order to look tough on leftist Latin American governments for Cuban-American voters in Florida—then the Biden administration didn’t lift them, for the same reason. Meanwhile Venezuela’s opposition is a clown show that seems to hope that if it gestures hard enough, someone else will swoop in to solve its problems.
But I appreciated that this doesn’t just turn into a policy paper. Even in the analysis it focuses on specifics and on interviews with people involved, and it also follows the lives of people who are working to survive and take care of their families. I did wish for a few pictures, especially as Neuman emphasizes the physical beauty of the country!
I do see the criticisms of Neuman’s politics as very middle-of-the-road, though perhaps that’s helpful in a journalist, and dealing with extreme and foolish governments in both Venezuela and the U.S. means he pretty much criticizes everybody. In the end I don’t know what he believes, but I also don’t know that it matters—his purpose is to share factual analysis of what went wrong. (Also his tangent about how Venezuelans refer to electricity as “light” while Americans call it “power” suggests he hasn’t met many low-income Americans, but okay.)
In the end, I certainly learned from this book and found it very engaging reading. A strong and thorough work of journalism that should be worthwhile for anyone interested in Venezuela.
An informative, accessible and compelling study of life and politics in today’s Venezuela, from a journalist who spent several years in the country. It takes as its focal point the blackouts of 2019: the point at which the country had deteriorated so much (economically and in terms of functionality of services and living conditions) that the government couldn’t even keep the lights on.
Rather than a chronological account, the book circles back to the same events several times, but in a way that generally reinforces and adds context to the previous bits rather than confusing them. Early on we get more human-interest stories of regular people’s lives, later some economic analysis, and then a higher-level look at the politics in both Venezuela and the U.S. that led to this situation.
I found it all very engaging despite the often bleak subject matter. Neuman interviews people from diverse walks of life, from slumdwellers to hotel managers to the guy who unsuccessfully declared himself president and the U.S. diplomats and analysts involved. And he travels around the country to get a sense of different places (while the cities are struggling, the mining areas are nightmarish).
There’s also a lot of economic and political analysis, which is digestible for the casual reader. Neuman notes that Venezuela’s economy was mostly strong under Chavez, because China’s development meant oil was priced high; Venezuela became entirely dependent on a single commodity whose price later fell, while squandering much of the money that came in with projects that looked good on TV but were often never finished and provided no benefit to the people (Neuman calls it “fauxcialism” at one point). Chavez’s government also allowed people to swindle the government left and right. Businesspeople took massive advantage of currency policies and only pretended to import things, while key positions depended on cronyism rather than competence. Everything got worse under Chavez’s successor, Maduro, who doubled down on autocratic tendencies as the economy got worse. The coup de grace happened when the first Trump administration jumped straight to last-resort sanctions in order to look tough on leftist Latin American governments for Cuban-American voters in Florida—then the Biden administration didn’t lift them, for the same reason. Meanwhile Venezuela’s opposition is a clown show that seems to hope that if it gestures hard enough, someone else will swoop in to solve its problems.
But I appreciated that this doesn’t just turn into a policy paper. Even in the analysis it focuses on specifics and on interviews with people involved, and it also follows the lives of people who are working to survive and take care of their families. I did wish for a few pictures, especially as Neuman emphasizes the physical beauty of the country!
I do see the criticisms of Neuman’s politics as very middle-of-the-road, though perhaps that’s helpful in a journalist, and dealing with extreme and foolish governments in both Venezuela and the U.S. means he pretty much criticizes everybody. In the end I don’t know what he believes, but I also don’t know that it matters—his purpose is to share factual analysis of what went wrong. (Also his tangent about how Venezuelans refer to electricity as “light” while Americans call it “power” suggests he hasn’t met many low-income Americans, but okay.)
In the end, I certainly learned from this book and found it very engaging reading. A strong and thorough work of journalism that should be worthwhile for anyone interested in Venezuela.
May 31, 2023
Having come from a former communist country that still struggles with the balance between capitalism and socialism I can relate to the people of Venezuela quite a lot. But it seems that Venezuela takes the corruption, nepotism, dogmatism and plain old incompetence of populist regimes to the utmost extreme.
The book written by William Neuman chronicles the descent of Venezuela into chaos during the late Chavez regime and the Maduras regime. The main focus is chronicling the country's terrible situation through personal anecdotes of the everyday people and their suffering, from common people like miners or labourers, all the way up to engineers and lawyers. A massive blackout that started in 2019 is used as a narrative device to explain the rundown state of the country and how it got there.
I was hoping for more historical details about Venezuela. There is some brief history in the book but not that much. I feel like I really want to read more about the history of Venezuela and about Miranda and Bolivar, especially since everything in Venezuela is named after Bolivar from their currency, to economic programmes, to train lines and all the way to their actual country name (the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela). However, it seems that Miranda was the original father of the Republic who was actually betrayed and handed over to the Spanish by Bolivar and his allies for trying to come to an agreement.
The most interesting part of the book is the explanation of how a country like Venezuela that became rich off oil in the 1960-1970s and has the biggest oil deposits in the world ended up becoming one of the poorest countries in the world. The so called 'resource curse' is explained in detail, how the great success of the oil industry led to an increase in wages and prices throughout the country which completely destroyed all other industries and the agricultural sector and left oil as the only functioning part of the economy.
The accelerated collapse of the economy during the Chavez years is documented. Chavez won on a populist programme, he nationalised or bought back refineries, mines, utilities and other industries and then appointed incompetent party members to run them who then proceeded to run them into the ground and completely destroy them. He instituted currency controls in order bring in cheap imports for the poor population but this created a huge black market where racketeers bought cheap dollars from the government and sold them for ten times more. Millions upon millions were spent on large infrastructure projects which were started but never finished. The levels of corruption and graft were monumental.
The author delves more in detail about Venezuela's politics only after the death of Chavez and the election of Maduro. He tells the story of all the political battles and the descent of the country into a failed mafia state where different factions control provinces where the government has no power. The gold mines were a horrendous example where the old labour unions became a mafia that murdered people and acted like the state.
A bid downside of the book was the structure. I felt that there was a bit of an erratic jump from chapter to chapter, from the stories of the local people to the high level politics and back. It felt a bit jarring. Also, I thought there were a bit too many personal stories and not enough explanation of the politics and the economy and not enough detail in the historical parts.
Donald Trump definitely made things a lot worse for Venezuela and its people due to the imposed oil embargo. However, it is clear that the author has a bone to pick with Trump and the Republicans as he compared the failed state of Venezuela with the dream of the Republican party. It felt a bit too subjective and out of place in a book about Venezuela.
The book written by William Neuman chronicles the descent of Venezuela into chaos during the late Chavez regime and the Maduras regime. The main focus is chronicling the country's terrible situation through personal anecdotes of the everyday people and their suffering, from common people like miners or labourers, all the way up to engineers and lawyers. A massive blackout that started in 2019 is used as a narrative device to explain the rundown state of the country and how it got there.
I was hoping for more historical details about Venezuela. There is some brief history in the book but not that much. I feel like I really want to read more about the history of Venezuela and about Miranda and Bolivar, especially since everything in Venezuela is named after Bolivar from their currency, to economic programmes, to train lines and all the way to their actual country name (the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela). However, it seems that Miranda was the original father of the Republic who was actually betrayed and handed over to the Spanish by Bolivar and his allies for trying to come to an agreement.
The most interesting part of the book is the explanation of how a country like Venezuela that became rich off oil in the 1960-1970s and has the biggest oil deposits in the world ended up becoming one of the poorest countries in the world. The so called 'resource curse' is explained in detail, how the great success of the oil industry led to an increase in wages and prices throughout the country which completely destroyed all other industries and the agricultural sector and left oil as the only functioning part of the economy.
The accelerated collapse of the economy during the Chavez years is documented. Chavez won on a populist programme, he nationalised or bought back refineries, mines, utilities and other industries and then appointed incompetent party members to run them who then proceeded to run them into the ground and completely destroy them. He instituted currency controls in order bring in cheap imports for the poor population but this created a huge black market where racketeers bought cheap dollars from the government and sold them for ten times more. Millions upon millions were spent on large infrastructure projects which were started but never finished. The levels of corruption and graft were monumental.
The author delves more in detail about Venezuela's politics only after the death of Chavez and the election of Maduro. He tells the story of all the political battles and the descent of the country into a failed mafia state where different factions control provinces where the government has no power. The gold mines were a horrendous example where the old labour unions became a mafia that murdered people and acted like the state.
A bid downside of the book was the structure. I felt that there was a bit of an erratic jump from chapter to chapter, from the stories of the local people to the high level politics and back. It felt a bit jarring. Also, I thought there were a bit too many personal stories and not enough explanation of the politics and the economy and not enough detail in the historical parts.
Donald Trump definitely made things a lot worse for Venezuela and its people due to the imposed oil embargo. However, it is clear that the author has a bone to pick with Trump and the Republicans as he compared the failed state of Venezuela with the dream of the Republican party. It felt a bit too subjective and out of place in a book about Venezuela.
April 3, 2023
I had to press pause on writing this review at first because while I had all the makings of a high-quality rant, with non-fiction, I feel the extra burden of making sure said ranting is coherent and well-informed. Things are Never So Bad They Can't Get Worse is a White American journalist's perspective on the how and why of the economic collapse in Venezuela with related political chaos. The author is upfront about how being an outsider colors his interactions with sources. However, he doesn't go so far as to be reflexive about how his role as an American would affect his view of the situation-- his judgments, his motivations, and his interpretations. And the further I read, the clearer his high-and-mighty tone grated on my nerves, his very particular and precarious political position on display. I would call it "liberal enough to look for opportunities to insult Trump (easy) but not liberal enough to be embarrassed by our country in a more general sense or to question the forces of capitalism (challenging)." It's Liberal Lite™: the option for the over-educated but too comfortable and ultimately self-centered.
I was mad at so many things that it's hard to be organized and clear about it. This is my best attempt at distilling what I noticed. Neuman's central premise is that the "essential story of Venezuela" is a cycle between wealth and poverty. He skips through history, picking up the details that feed into his (literally) essentialist view. Neuman makes gross oversimplifications aplenty, highlighting what he views as greed and corruption inherent in the collective Venezuelan psyche. But is expecting your "socialist" government to compensate you for its lucrative natural resources (oil) greedy? As opposed to letting a billionaire sit on those profits all on his lonesome? And is it equally corrupt for a wealthy businessman to play the system as for a desperate, starving person? He also describes Venezuelans as unwilling to collaborate, even for something important like fixing roads. Like hello, have you paid attention to US politics? It's the pot calling the kettle black AND it's painting a whole country's political system in dangerously broad strokes. Neuman also calls South America the most "violent continent," implying a fixed nature and a geographic etiology that I found logically questionable before we even address what data he did and didn't consult (not specified) for that incendiary title. Pretty sure we live in a country of regular, senseless mass shootings, so pass us the crown. Ultimately, the impression of an unending chain of acrimony, violence, incompetence, and corruption that will head into the future unbroken persists in a sort of defeatist hopelessness on the part of the author. These are some of the many circumstances where his role as a non-Venezuelan is clear. He shakes his head at the sorry state of things, lacking any horse in the race to motivate him or give him a nuanced view of the proceedings.
Instead, we get shock-and-awe journalism trotting out extreme, horrifying examples of everyday human suffering for a White audience to spectate from their comfortable circumstances. For example, calling someone's home a "shack" is patronizing and demeaning given the flippant tone, along with calling a person's life "marginal" like wtf does that mean? Marginal to what? That's a person's whole life you're talking about. He's also eager to share every detail of a source's torture at the hands of secret police, revealing that he pushed past the man's discomfort at sharing some of the details as if it demonstrated some unnecessary social conservatism that he didn't wish to share.
I also want to get into more specifically how Neuman wants to discuss economics in great detail without engaging much with colonialism and basically ignoring the sociopolitical context. To be fair to him, Neuman provides helpful explanations of importing scams -- exchanging for dollars at the market rate for imported goods and then making a profit by selling the excess dollars at a black market rate. However, boom-and-bust cycles are explained like they happen in a vacuum. Imports and exports go off the page into an unexamined ether. It gives big "invisible hand" vibes as if human decisions bow to market forces or are at least predicted by them, and the economy persists, beholden to no one. There's no questioning of who holds power and why outside of Venezuela-- the foreign banks so eager to write loans or the companies driving up inflation. The lack of economic diversification in Venezuela and the massive loans seem to be genuine issues, but Neuman wants to act like people are entitled for expecting oil wealth to be shared by the government, a further push into economic collapse. I see how a crash of that system would harm everyone, but that doesn't mean it was inherently bad for distributing wealth. Neuman's very keen on the Puritan myth of working hard as a sign of superior morality, yet another awkward example of not interrogating one's US upbringing before being shady towards other people.
The rest of my comments are in a similar vein, so I'm going to list them out, following the theme of "who authorized this white man to report on Venezuela like he's an expert and then write a whole damn book about it?"
1. The author comments that Columbus saw a river that wasn't named yet ... things can have a name before white people go around rebranding shit in a fit of colonialist superiority, bro.
2. He waxes poetic about how Venezuelans refer to electricity as "luz (light)" colloquially vs the American habit of calling it "power," which is an interesting comparison for underlying meaning and perception, but he doesn't need to be quite so smarmy as to declare the US term more accurate.
3. Should this white author be using the word gringo to mock the original worldview behind it? Neuman throws it around whenever Venezuelans are being dismissive or distrustful of White perspectives... And fair enough? So I don't think he gets to be cute about that.
4. He's also eager to make US comparisons, and it's not always clear if that's fair. He doesn't lay out systemic evidence to limit his claims appropriately. He just takes apples and oranges and goes LOOK, IT'S _____________ (populism, political weaponization of media, etc. -- fill in the blank).
5. He takes the side of expats, given the opportunity. An employer of European descent gets the benefit of the doubt for being reasonable and benevolent in one anecdote because he's the author's friend. Meanwhile, his Venezuelan employee is portrayed as manipulative and lazy for leaving a job for easier money. No details of working conditions or relative salary are provided to back that particular tone.
6. Further, Neuman interviews a bunch of US "experts" on the situation in Venezuela for a third of the book. It's relevant insofar as we were meddling in their politics, but to put those POVs on par with the lived experiences of people in the country... Ew. The intricacies of US infighting don't deserve the level of name-dropping and finger-pointing afforded them in this book. We are not the kingmakers of the world, and when we take that role, we historically fuck shit up. That should be the one-paragraph summary, not 100 pages delineating our idiotic policies. The only helpful part for me is that Neuman describes how foreign policy under Trump was really about domestic politics, i.e. Venezuelan policy as a reflection on Cuban policy, which is all about winning Florida's electoral votes. But that still has no bearing on Venezuela, the supposed subject of the book. That's making foreign policy domestic, the author committing the sin of his political enemy.
Did I learn anything about Venezuela from this book? Yes. But that's more a comment on my sad lack of education going in than on the author's talent and informativeness. I would pick up a book by a Venezuelan in a heartbeat to counteract some of the nonsense I had to put up with here. Working for The New York Times is not a free pass to write about the world if and how you see fit. I'm tired of white men.
I was mad at so many things that it's hard to be organized and clear about it. This is my best attempt at distilling what I noticed. Neuman's central premise is that the "essential story of Venezuela" is a cycle between wealth and poverty. He skips through history, picking up the details that feed into his (literally) essentialist view. Neuman makes gross oversimplifications aplenty, highlighting what he views as greed and corruption inherent in the collective Venezuelan psyche. But is expecting your "socialist" government to compensate you for its lucrative natural resources (oil) greedy? As opposed to letting a billionaire sit on those profits all on his lonesome? And is it equally corrupt for a wealthy businessman to play the system as for a desperate, starving person? He also describes Venezuelans as unwilling to collaborate, even for something important like fixing roads. Like hello, have you paid attention to US politics? It's the pot calling the kettle black AND it's painting a whole country's political system in dangerously broad strokes. Neuman also calls South America the most "violent continent," implying a fixed nature and a geographic etiology that I found logically questionable before we even address what data he did and didn't consult (not specified) for that incendiary title. Pretty sure we live in a country of regular, senseless mass shootings, so pass us the crown. Ultimately, the impression of an unending chain of acrimony, violence, incompetence, and corruption that will head into the future unbroken persists in a sort of defeatist hopelessness on the part of the author. These are some of the many circumstances where his role as a non-Venezuelan is clear. He shakes his head at the sorry state of things, lacking any horse in the race to motivate him or give him a nuanced view of the proceedings.
Instead, we get shock-and-awe journalism trotting out extreme, horrifying examples of everyday human suffering for a White audience to spectate from their comfortable circumstances. For example, calling someone's home a "shack" is patronizing and demeaning given the flippant tone, along with calling a person's life "marginal" like wtf does that mean? Marginal to what? That's a person's whole life you're talking about. He's also eager to share every detail of a source's torture at the hands of secret police, revealing that he pushed past the man's discomfort at sharing some of the details as if it demonstrated some unnecessary social conservatism that he didn't wish to share.
I also want to get into more specifically how Neuman wants to discuss economics in great detail without engaging much with colonialism and basically ignoring the sociopolitical context. To be fair to him, Neuman provides helpful explanations of importing scams -- exchanging for dollars at the market rate for imported goods and then making a profit by selling the excess dollars at a black market rate. However, boom-and-bust cycles are explained like they happen in a vacuum. Imports and exports go off the page into an unexamined ether. It gives big "invisible hand" vibes as if human decisions bow to market forces or are at least predicted by them, and the economy persists, beholden to no one. There's no questioning of who holds power and why outside of Venezuela-- the foreign banks so eager to write loans or the companies driving up inflation. The lack of economic diversification in Venezuela and the massive loans seem to be genuine issues, but Neuman wants to act like people are entitled for expecting oil wealth to be shared by the government, a further push into economic collapse. I see how a crash of that system would harm everyone, but that doesn't mean it was inherently bad for distributing wealth. Neuman's very keen on the Puritan myth of working hard as a sign of superior morality, yet another awkward example of not interrogating one's US upbringing before being shady towards other people.
The rest of my comments are in a similar vein, so I'm going to list them out, following the theme of "who authorized this white man to report on Venezuela like he's an expert and then write a whole damn book about it?"
1. The author comments that Columbus saw a river that wasn't named yet ... things can have a name before white people go around rebranding shit in a fit of colonialist superiority, bro.
2. He waxes poetic about how Venezuelans refer to electricity as "luz (light)" colloquially vs the American habit of calling it "power," which is an interesting comparison for underlying meaning and perception, but he doesn't need to be quite so smarmy as to declare the US term more accurate.
3. Should this white author be using the word gringo to mock the original worldview behind it? Neuman throws it around whenever Venezuelans are being dismissive or distrustful of White perspectives... And fair enough? So I don't think he gets to be cute about that.
4. He's also eager to make US comparisons, and it's not always clear if that's fair. He doesn't lay out systemic evidence to limit his claims appropriately. He just takes apples and oranges and goes LOOK, IT'S _____________ (populism, political weaponization of media, etc. -- fill in the blank).
5. He takes the side of expats, given the opportunity. An employer of European descent gets the benefit of the doubt for being reasonable and benevolent in one anecdote because he's the author's friend. Meanwhile, his Venezuelan employee is portrayed as manipulative and lazy for leaving a job for easier money. No details of working conditions or relative salary are provided to back that particular tone.
6. Further, Neuman interviews a bunch of US "experts" on the situation in Venezuela for a third of the book. It's relevant insofar as we were meddling in their politics, but to put those POVs on par with the lived experiences of people in the country... Ew. The intricacies of US infighting don't deserve the level of name-dropping and finger-pointing afforded them in this book. We are not the kingmakers of the world, and when we take that role, we historically fuck shit up. That should be the one-paragraph summary, not 100 pages delineating our idiotic policies. The only helpful part for me is that Neuman describes how foreign policy under Trump was really about domestic politics, i.e. Venezuelan policy as a reflection on Cuban policy, which is all about winning Florida's electoral votes. But that still has no bearing on Venezuela, the supposed subject of the book. That's making foreign policy domestic, the author committing the sin of his political enemy.
Did I learn anything about Venezuela from this book? Yes. But that's more a comment on my sad lack of education going in than on the author's talent and informativeness. I would pick up a book by a Venezuelan in a heartbeat to counteract some of the nonsense I had to put up with here. Working for The New York Times is not a free pass to write about the world if and how you see fit. I'm tired of white men.
April 9, 2022
When I first started this book I was pretty engaged. Venezuela is a country I know very little about and the book is essentially a series of articles. Over time the format of the book wore thin. I'm also given to understand that this book has a very pro-United States point of view, when in fact the US is at least partially responsible for what happened there. It's awful. But if you are looking for an objective history of Venezuela, you'll likely need to look elsewhere.
Author seems pretty convinced that Chavez and Moduro dug the grave, and the Trump admin came in and threw the dirt on it. I'm not sure that's the whole story.
Author seems pretty convinced that Chavez and Moduro dug the grave, and the Trump admin came in and threw the dirt on it. I'm not sure that's the whole story.
March 27, 2022
I appreciated learning more about the history of Venezuela, and was sucked in by the narrative explaining the most recent events in the country. The author’s approach was a little heavy handed and I felt some of his comparisons were narrow minded. Though the author did entrance me with stories of the beautiful country and its people with all their complexity of hope, resilience, and singular focus.
March 21, 2022
We had a rental property in Pittsburgh years ago and our first tenants were a wealthy family from Venezuela. The parents were doctors. I've always been curious about what their country was like.
Author William Neuman writes about the decline of Venezuela from the days of overwhelming riches to the depths of extraordinary poverty. An alarming number of people have fled to other countries.
Having lived in Caracas while he served as the New York Times Andes Region Bureau Chief, Neuman has combined journalism, memoir, history, politics, and interviews into an accessible book for anyone wanting more in-depth understanding of Venezuela.
It's clear that the author has great empathy for the people. His interviews range from the the people who bear the brunt of the damage by the country's leaders to those who surrounded and protected the wealthy. The involvement of the United States of America is also considered. It's hard not to see disturbing patterns between the two countries.
Highly recommended.
My thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.
Author William Neuman writes about the decline of Venezuela from the days of overwhelming riches to the depths of extraordinary poverty. An alarming number of people have fled to other countries.
Having lived in Caracas while he served as the New York Times Andes Region Bureau Chief, Neuman has combined journalism, memoir, history, politics, and interviews into an accessible book for anyone wanting more in-depth understanding of Venezuela.
It's clear that the author has great empathy for the people. His interviews range from the the people who bear the brunt of the damage by the country's leaders to those who surrounded and protected the wealthy. The involvement of the United States of America is also considered. It's hard not to see disturbing patterns between the two countries.
Highly recommended.
My thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.
January 30, 2022
If you have any interest in Venezuela at all, you have to read this book. I’ve been following news from this country for a few years (they were more and more bizarre, my favorite was a story from the Economist how the Venezuelan government gave its starving citizens little rabbits to provide them a source of fresh meat but they fell in love with their bunnies and decided to treat them as pets instead) but I often felt that I am missing the context.
This book provided it and more: the author takes a deep dive into the history and politics, showing how a land of milk and honey turned into an apocalyptic wasteland. He has a knack for explaining complicated political and economic issues in a very simple and easy to understand way.
But above all it is a fascinating, very well written work of narrative nonfiction. William Neuman, as a New York Times correspondent, combines the panoramic view with engaging on-the-ground reporting. He has deep empathy and an eye for detail, which he utilizes to show us how the geopolitical turmoil changes the fates of ordinary people.
Many thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.
This book provided it and more: the author takes a deep dive into the history and politics, showing how a land of milk and honey turned into an apocalyptic wasteland. He has a knack for explaining complicated political and economic issues in a very simple and easy to understand way.
But above all it is a fascinating, very well written work of narrative nonfiction. William Neuman, as a New York Times correspondent, combines the panoramic view with engaging on-the-ground reporting. He has deep empathy and an eye for detail, which he utilizes to show us how the geopolitical turmoil changes the fates of ordinary people.
Many thanks to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.
September 28, 2022
Wanted to like this more. I did learn more about the broad strokes history of Venezuela, and the intimate US policy details around the tail end of Chavez’s reign. However, I felt the author leaned too heavily on his journalistic/ firsthand experiences, and that the book could have benefitted from more of a historic/ contextual lens (and less white guy mansplaining).
June 29, 2022
Attraction is a welcome basic instinct. I was fully captivated by the title of the book and the content did not let me down. Author William Neuman, a seasoned American investigative journalist, lived in Venezuela to acquire firsthand testimony from common citizens to portray how socialism and the fall of a once successful society impacted their lives. His story is from the heart.
In 2005 Chavez, the very charismatic leader of Venezuela, proclaimed that he would bring socialism to the country. The impact swiftly brought the once beautiful and joyful nation to its knees. Failure was everywhere, as a result of corrupt politicians, a severe lack of the rule of law, drastic shortages of food and commodities, excessive printed money, which with over regulation caused massive inflation and the private sector was shunned in favor of a bloated government. Gangs through ruthless bribery and made-up laws ruled the cities and countryside. To top everything off criminals ransacked the electric grid, blackouts became normal, and government officials controlled when “light” might be available. Neuman stated “The blackout got inside your head. It threw you off balance. You weren’t the same after as you were before.”
Political leaders would boldly lie, as the public constantly tried to filter the truth. Neuman summed up the corrupt government leaders by writing “When you spin fictions within fictions, if you do it long enough, even the fiction-weavers may wind up losing their way, caught in the hall of mirrors they created.”
The rapid decline of Venezuela should be comprehended by all. The tragedy especially impacts the common citizen, who knew of much better times and now live with a loss of freedom. Each present day is a survival for simple existence.
As hard as I try, I know I cannot fully envision the Venezuelan nightmare catastrophe. I do know many common American citizens are currently experiencing economic events that seem out of their control. Furthermore, many individuals feel altered and “off balance” following COVID and heavy-handed government control and restrictions.
In 2005 Chavez, the very charismatic leader of Venezuela, proclaimed that he would bring socialism to the country. The impact swiftly brought the once beautiful and joyful nation to its knees. Failure was everywhere, as a result of corrupt politicians, a severe lack of the rule of law, drastic shortages of food and commodities, excessive printed money, which with over regulation caused massive inflation and the private sector was shunned in favor of a bloated government. Gangs through ruthless bribery and made-up laws ruled the cities and countryside. To top everything off criminals ransacked the electric grid, blackouts became normal, and government officials controlled when “light” might be available. Neuman stated “The blackout got inside your head. It threw you off balance. You weren’t the same after as you were before.”
Political leaders would boldly lie, as the public constantly tried to filter the truth. Neuman summed up the corrupt government leaders by writing “When you spin fictions within fictions, if you do it long enough, even the fiction-weavers may wind up losing their way, caught in the hall of mirrors they created.”
The rapid decline of Venezuela should be comprehended by all. The tragedy especially impacts the common citizen, who knew of much better times and now live with a loss of freedom. Each present day is a survival for simple existence.
As hard as I try, I know I cannot fully envision the Venezuelan nightmare catastrophe. I do know many common American citizens are currently experiencing economic events that seem out of their control. Furthermore, many individuals feel altered and “off balance” following COVID and heavy-handed government control and restrictions.
June 22, 2023
Vivid and heartbreaking reportage from extensive visits to Venezuela, with interviews of the rich and well-connected, the used-to-be middle class, and the poor and exhausted. I wonder which of these situations (if any) will start to happen in the United States—power blackouts that last for days, misery and deaths because of a lack of basic maintenance, ambitious projects that get announced but are never completed and leave holes in the landscape.
May 29, 2025
3.5 Stars… The subject of Venezuela has so much potential but this book feels very scattershot. My biggest issue with it is that the book jumps back and forth in time so much it almost makes the narrative incoherent. For example, much is discussed about issues with electricity and a blackout throughout the city. There are eight chapters named “Blackout” and while you might think they are all combined in the same section, they are actually Chapters 1, 3, 5, 12, 14, 16, 19, and 31. I honestly couldn’t tell you why the format is the way it is. Some of Venezuela’s history that should be essential seems to be skimmed over or ignored entirely. Some sections explore the cause of the country’s situation, but even after finishing the book I still don’t know if the book conveyed the struggle of the people of Venezuela adequately. This is a people who had a Democracy for about two decades and lost their freedom and wealth. There is so much interesting about the country and what it is facing. I don’t know how Venezuela is doing currently because the book just kinda ends at a random spot near COVID without providing a conclusion.
The later sections of the book emphasize America’s involvement in Venezuela’s politics, but only for a four year period. For example, Obama is mentioned 11 times, Trump 96 times, and Biden 13 times. One of the main conclusions appears to be that Venezuela is a Republican wet dream, but the explanation provided didn’t make much sense to me. The author (rightfully, in my opinion) believes sanctions don’t work and actually just negatively affects citizens the most, but he sort of just ignores all of the sanctions Obama and Biden put on Venezuela while criticizing Trump for those same moves repeatedly. Venezuela is not a country that has fallen fast because of US involvement - it’s been on the decline for many decades. He also posits that policy towards Venezuela is simply to win Florida during US elections. Most people (even in Florida) wouldn’t put Venezuela in their top 50 list of issues to address in an election. I’m not defending our response / involvement with Venezuela - it definitely seems believable that Trump does not understand the country well enough to dictate the moves that should be made (tariffs anyone?). But singling out one admin while looking at others with rose-tinted glasses was weird - things have been just as bad and elections have been just as corrupt for many years.
Despite my negative tone, the book is readable and does give insight into some personal stories as well as a general overview of the country and its history. Venezuela is a country that is not covered enough in the media but has a complex and interesting history. I don’t regret reading it, but it’s not as good as it could have been.
The later sections of the book emphasize America’s involvement in Venezuela’s politics, but only for a four year period. For example, Obama is mentioned 11 times, Trump 96 times, and Biden 13 times. One of the main conclusions appears to be that Venezuela is a Republican wet dream, but the explanation provided didn’t make much sense to me. The author (rightfully, in my opinion) believes sanctions don’t work and actually just negatively affects citizens the most, but he sort of just ignores all of the sanctions Obama and Biden put on Venezuela while criticizing Trump for those same moves repeatedly. Venezuela is not a country that has fallen fast because of US involvement - it’s been on the decline for many decades. He also posits that policy towards Venezuela is simply to win Florida during US elections. Most people (even in Florida) wouldn’t put Venezuela in their top 50 list of issues to address in an election. I’m not defending our response / involvement with Venezuela - it definitely seems believable that Trump does not understand the country well enough to dictate the moves that should be made (tariffs anyone?). But singling out one admin while looking at others with rose-tinted glasses was weird - things have been just as bad and elections have been just as corrupt for many years.
Despite my negative tone, the book is readable and does give insight into some personal stories as well as a general overview of the country and its history. Venezuela is a country that is not covered enough in the media but has a complex and interesting history. I don’t regret reading it, but it’s not as good as it could have been.
March 29, 2022
История Венесуэлы в рассказах разных ее граждан, записанная американским журналистом-демократом. Как же богатейшая страна стала беднейшей? 6 мил из 30 мил населения пришлось бежать из страны. ВВП просел на 60%, больше чем мог бы в случае войны. Минус - перенос внутриамериканской ругани во внешнюю среду - критика республиканцев, Трампа.
May 14, 2022
Outstanding review of Venezuela’s socialist failings. Would have easily been a 4 or better if not for blatant trashing of the U.S. in general and Trump in particular.
January 11, 2026
This is easily the best overview that I have read on the economic crisis of 2010s Venezuela. It is reporting based, meaning that it’s built on interviews and other journalistic methods for sourcing claims, but it’s not one of those superficial travelogue style journalistic treatments of the topic. Instead, the author is a veteran reporter with years of experience covering and traveling in Venezuela.
The book covers the period, roughly, from the heyday of Chávez in the 00s to the Guaidó attempted coup in 2019. There’s some quite helpful context in the book going back even earlier, like to the previous boom-bust, but the original reporting focuses on 2010s for the most part.
A couple of the main points of the book that people will find helpful:
-how Chávez undercut or outright dismantled checks on executive power as well the autonomy of various institutions and companies, which set the stage for both the oil crisis of the 2010s and Maduro’s consolidation of power as outright dictator (eg elimination of law mandating savings fund during oil boom to cushion economy for inevitable bust, and raiding of said fund for most of what it had by the time it was eliminated)
-how internally most Chavista technocrats don’t bother articulating problems and potential solutions to issues in terms of official explanations for problems; they focus on the domestic structural issues that are really at play (eg electrical grid was collapsing due to neglect rather than ‘snipers’ shooting at it)
-Chavismo is not a single unified political entity but rather a series of cooperating patron-client networks with often competing interests that are mostly united by the desire to keep the gravy train rolling. Who gets what as they slice up posts and other lucrative positions often more about which part of the coalition they’re empowering in a vast balancing act than any question of competence
-Maduro’s role in making 2010s crisis much much much worse than it had to be by delaying exactly the policy reforms that might stop the hyperinflation, whether out of decision paralysis or because members of his inner circle were giving him bad advice because they benefited from the status quo
Great/important read that will serve as a useful counterpoint to US-centric explanations. It also makes sure to explain that Chavez didn’t come out of nowhere; he’s rooted in the deep social discontent and inequality of the 90s
The two biggest missing parts of the story are:
-Cuban connection, which plays a limited role in the story but which was already playing key role in keeping maduro in power by late 2010s
-tackling role of sanctions more in depth; he’s not outright dismissive of the role of sanctions, but I do think his points re: domestic failings would be taken even more seriously by an even wider audience if he talked more about sanctions
The book covers the period, roughly, from the heyday of Chávez in the 00s to the Guaidó attempted coup in 2019. There’s some quite helpful context in the book going back even earlier, like to the previous boom-bust, but the original reporting focuses on 2010s for the most part.
A couple of the main points of the book that people will find helpful:
-how Chávez undercut or outright dismantled checks on executive power as well the autonomy of various institutions and companies, which set the stage for both the oil crisis of the 2010s and Maduro’s consolidation of power as outright dictator (eg elimination of law mandating savings fund during oil boom to cushion economy for inevitable bust, and raiding of said fund for most of what it had by the time it was eliminated)
-how internally most Chavista technocrats don’t bother articulating problems and potential solutions to issues in terms of official explanations for problems; they focus on the domestic structural issues that are really at play (eg electrical grid was collapsing due to neglect rather than ‘snipers’ shooting at it)
-Chavismo is not a single unified political entity but rather a series of cooperating patron-client networks with often competing interests that are mostly united by the desire to keep the gravy train rolling. Who gets what as they slice up posts and other lucrative positions often more about which part of the coalition they’re empowering in a vast balancing act than any question of competence
-Maduro’s role in making 2010s crisis much much much worse than it had to be by delaying exactly the policy reforms that might stop the hyperinflation, whether out of decision paralysis or because members of his inner circle were giving him bad advice because they benefited from the status quo
Great/important read that will serve as a useful counterpoint to US-centric explanations. It also makes sure to explain that Chavez didn’t come out of nowhere; he’s rooted in the deep social discontent and inequality of the 90s
The two biggest missing parts of the story are:
-Cuban connection, which plays a limited role in the story but which was already playing key role in keeping maduro in power by late 2010s
-tackling role of sanctions more in depth; he’s not outright dismissive of the role of sanctions, but I do think his points re: domestic failings would be taken even more seriously by an even wider audience if he talked more about sanctions
November 25, 2022
I almost made it to Venezuela and disappointed I didn’t making this book the closest I’ve got.
Written by a news correspondent utilizing contacts from his years coving Venezuela. What makes it interesting is how Nauman uses his contacts to personalize the stories and Venezuela’s plight. And he has a lot of contacts across a diverse geographic, political, and social demographic. Nauman blends the country’s history with present day insights.
It is sad how the country squandered its resources for the benefit of the elite and the expense of all others. We see that here in this book.
Nauman provides insight on the latest election and aftermath when Juan Guaidó attempted to claim the presidency. There’s a weird tangent on how the US moved quickly to recognize Guaidó tried to claim credit for bringing him to power. Nauman points out how this was interpreted as US nation building which doomed it while several South American countries had also worked to help Guaidó and had the US not tried to claim credit it had a greater chance of success. If so, a missed opportunity for Venezuela.
A solid book if one knows little of the country. Reasonably well written and engaging.
Written by a news correspondent utilizing contacts from his years coving Venezuela. What makes it interesting is how Nauman uses his contacts to personalize the stories and Venezuela’s plight. And he has a lot of contacts across a diverse geographic, political, and social demographic. Nauman blends the country’s history with present day insights.
It is sad how the country squandered its resources for the benefit of the elite and the expense of all others. We see that here in this book.
Nauman provides insight on the latest election and aftermath when Juan Guaidó attempted to claim the presidency. There’s a weird tangent on how the US moved quickly to recognize Guaidó tried to claim credit for bringing him to power. Nauman points out how this was interpreted as US nation building which doomed it while several South American countries had also worked to help Guaidó and had the US not tried to claim credit it had a greater chance of success. If so, a missed opportunity for Venezuela.
A solid book if one knows little of the country. Reasonably well written and engaging.
June 22, 2024
“The immigration numbers tell you about the evaporation of hope in a person’s heart.”
Great book that explains why Venezuela is in the state that it is in now — and gave me a deeper understanding of the experience of the ordinary people who have lived/live there.
Great book that explains why Venezuela is in the state that it is in now — and gave me a deeper understanding of the experience of the ordinary people who have lived/live there.
December 19, 2025
This book is my preferred format for learning about political crisis. Instead of a narrow focus on governments and figures, William Neuman broadens Venezuela's collapse to include its full historical, cultural, and economic context. I didn't just learn what happened; I began to understand the why behind it because politics is inseparable from society. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to move beyond headlines.
October 11, 2022
A well-reported, well-told story of the mess that is Venezuela, how it went from boom to bust, and how horrible daily life is for its people. Some of the individual stories of how people struggle with a government that is simultaneously authoritarian and lawless are really, really hard to read. There was one story about a child murder that was especially difficult to get through. These horrors give context to why one fifth of the Venezuelan population has fled the country. A very worthwhile, if not very optimistic, read.
January 25, 2024
This book provides an insightful look into the history of Venezula and how their economy and government failed despite their oil riches.
The rhetoric and populist authoritarian regimes echo the words of our own populist wanna-be authoritarian former President. It's a warning not to be ignored.
I really enjoyed listening to Michael Manuel narrate the audiobook edition.
interesting quote (page number from edition with ISBN13):
"...in 2013, on the night of the Presidential election to replace Chavez, the early returns showed Maduro behind...no matter what the outcome, they said, the government would not surrender power to the opposition. Maduro had inherited from Chavez a government stripped of checks and balances, without a separation of powers. Chavez had filled the Supreme Court with loyalists, and they had reliably ruled in favor of the government. Judges at other levels were kept in line. For years, the legislature was a rubber stamp of the tame Chavista majority. The Chavistas also controlled the electoral council, allowing them to set rules and conditions that suited them. Chavez, and Maduro after him, liked to boast about how many elections they'd won and how they'd created a democracy that put people first. But after so many years in power, they could conceive of only one sort of democracy, one that had them always as the winners." (p. )
The rhetoric and populist authoritarian regimes echo the words of our own populist wanna-be authoritarian former President. It's a warning not to be ignored.
I really enjoyed listening to Michael Manuel narrate the audiobook edition.
interesting quote (page number from edition with ISBN13):
"...in 2013, on the night of the Presidential election to replace Chavez, the early returns showed Maduro behind...no matter what the outcome, they said, the government would not surrender power to the opposition. Maduro had inherited from Chavez a government stripped of checks and balances, without a separation of powers. Chavez had filled the Supreme Court with loyalists, and they had reliably ruled in favor of the government. Judges at other levels were kept in line. For years, the legislature was a rubber stamp of the tame Chavista majority. The Chavistas also controlled the electoral council, allowing them to set rules and conditions that suited them. Chavez, and Maduro after him, liked to boast about how many elections they'd won and how they'd created a democracy that put people first. But after so many years in power, they could conceive of only one sort of democracy, one that had them always as the winners." (p. )
June 6, 2022
No matter how bad things get, I will always be able to console myself with the thought that, “At least I’m not in Venezuela.” What an incredible cautionary tale of how a country rich in oil can fall from middle-class and developed to authoritarian and impoverished. Violence is everywhere. Hunger is everywhere. What isn’t everywhere is electricity, food, and clean water – all those things they USED to have. People who used to routinely help each other out now only think about where they are going to get their next meal – even if their neighbor starves. One resident told the author that the country has regressed a hundred years. “There are no antibiotics, you cook on a wood fire, there’s no public transportation…there’s no media or access to means of communication because there’s no electricity.”
The author explains the Resource Curse. A country has a sudden increase in export income from a natural resource; oil in this case. Everything starts to revolve around that resource while other parts of the economy, like agriculture and manufacturing, fail. This leads to inflation spikes and shortages of good and manufactured items. (Their inflation rate in 2018 was 130,000%). Top that off with an authoritarian government and rampant corruption and you have Venezuela. Chavez was virtually a model for Donald Trump. “His discourse was aimed at the past more than the future. It was about returning to a golden age, returning to an imagined greatness that never really existed.” Chavez used television to connect to his base. He taunted and mocked his opponents. He used his presidential TV network and show to fire executives from the government-operated oil company on air, one by one: “Mr. Eddy Ramirez, thank you very much, sire. You’re fired!” Chavez understood that the way to stay in power was to polarize, to create an us-them dynamic, and turn everything into class warfare. One of his ploys was to always play the victim. “The claims of coup plots, assassination attempts, and sabotage multiplied.” Everything that went wrong was always somebody else’s fault. In 2013, on the night of the presidential election to replace Chavez, his advisors said that no matter the outcome, “the government would not surrender to the opposition.”
The author quotes the historian Timothy Snyder, who wrote “that history is complex and difficult, while fables – those that nations or ideologies tell about themselves – are appealing and easy to live with. ‘Authoritarianism begins,’ Snyder wrote, ‘when we can no longer tell the difference between the true and the appealing.’” Sound familiar?
The author explains the Resource Curse. A country has a sudden increase in export income from a natural resource; oil in this case. Everything starts to revolve around that resource while other parts of the economy, like agriculture and manufacturing, fail. This leads to inflation spikes and shortages of good and manufactured items. (Their inflation rate in 2018 was 130,000%). Top that off with an authoritarian government and rampant corruption and you have Venezuela. Chavez was virtually a model for Donald Trump. “His discourse was aimed at the past more than the future. It was about returning to a golden age, returning to an imagined greatness that never really existed.” Chavez used television to connect to his base. He taunted and mocked his opponents. He used his presidential TV network and show to fire executives from the government-operated oil company on air, one by one: “Mr. Eddy Ramirez, thank you very much, sire. You’re fired!” Chavez understood that the way to stay in power was to polarize, to create an us-them dynamic, and turn everything into class warfare. One of his ploys was to always play the victim. “The claims of coup plots, assassination attempts, and sabotage multiplied.” Everything that went wrong was always somebody else’s fault. In 2013, on the night of the presidential election to replace Chavez, his advisors said that no matter the outcome, “the government would not surrender to the opposition.”
The author quotes the historian Timothy Snyder, who wrote “that history is complex and difficult, while fables – those that nations or ideologies tell about themselves – are appealing and easy to live with. ‘Authoritarianism begins,’ Snyder wrote, ‘when we can no longer tell the difference between the true and the appealing.’” Sound familiar?
April 26, 2022
I went in with no expectations, having little more than a casual interest in Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution” and its subsequent collapse. Suffice to say that I was utterly blown away by Neuman’s work, an elegant, stirring, and effortless blend of straightforward social science with journalism and memoir.
In his travels around crisis-stricken Venezuela, Neuman strikes the perfect balance between empathy for the country’s citizens and indignation at the country’s leadership, who are equal parts nefarious and incompetent. Neuman detests the Chavistas’ corruption, haplessness, and lust for power, but he is no neocon——often criticizing the Venezuelan opposition, American intervention in Latin America, and the oil-centric political paradigm that dominated Venezuela prior to Chavez and ultimately paved the way for him.
Neuman covers nearly everything I hoped to learn about Venezuela: the rise of Chavez; the brutal reign of Maduro; the crushing economic logic of the country’s post-2015 collapse, which constitutes perhaps the worst peacetime crisis faced by a country in the 21st century. But this exposition serves primarily to contextualize Neuman’s strikingly thoughtful portraits of everyday Venezuelans as they struggle to make sense of their country collapsing around them.
In his travels around crisis-stricken Venezuela, Neuman strikes the perfect balance between empathy for the country’s citizens and indignation at the country’s leadership, who are equal parts nefarious and incompetent. Neuman detests the Chavistas’ corruption, haplessness, and lust for power, but he is no neocon——often criticizing the Venezuelan opposition, American intervention in Latin America, and the oil-centric political paradigm that dominated Venezuela prior to Chavez and ultimately paved the way for him.
Neuman covers nearly everything I hoped to learn about Venezuela: the rise of Chavez; the brutal reign of Maduro; the crushing economic logic of the country’s post-2015 collapse, which constitutes perhaps the worst peacetime crisis faced by a country in the 21st century. But this exposition serves primarily to contextualize Neuman’s strikingly thoughtful portraits of everyday Venezuelans as they struggle to make sense of their country collapsing around them.
April 18, 2022
I am really happy to see a book that covers the situation in a balanced way and covers the whole spectrum of society. As someone who grew up in Venezuela, the situation was so polarized that you never got the chance to understand the other side. It was always seen as "us vs them" and nobody listened to each other. This book clearly states this political division and tries to cover the point of view of the very poor, the rich, the opposition, chavismo, among many others. Not only that, it covers the impact on the economy and society from historical and current point of views.
With all the misinformation going around in the country, it is refreshing to see a well-written book that fact checks every story and the numbers associated with it. I felt I got "behind-the-scene" information from events I saw live on TV, Twitter or even Whatsapp messages. I learned new things about the country I hold dearly and got sad about the current state of it. Coincidentally, I left Venezuela in 2012 when the author just arrived. So it was a way for me to follow someone who lived the years in Venezuela when I wasn't.
Overall, a fun and informative read that I will share with friends, family, and anybody that asks me why Venezuela is in a crisis! Thank you to the author for all the hard work in getting this book into reality.
With all the misinformation going around in the country, it is refreshing to see a well-written book that fact checks every story and the numbers associated with it. I felt I got "behind-the-scene" information from events I saw live on TV, Twitter or even Whatsapp messages. I learned new things about the country I hold dearly and got sad about the current state of it. Coincidentally, I left Venezuela in 2012 when the author just arrived. So it was a way for me to follow someone who lived the years in Venezuela when I wasn't.
Overall, a fun and informative read that I will share with friends, family, and anybody that asks me why Venezuela is in a crisis! Thank you to the author for all the hard work in getting this book into reality.
September 8, 2022
This is a sad book, chronicling the fall of the nation of Venezuela, a petro-state that went from being a corrupt semi-democratic state to a corrupt socialistic nation run by a charismatic military strongman, Hugo Chavez. After his death, the job went to President Nicholas Maduro who does all he can to stifle rival political parties and appoint ideologues and sycophants to run industries and utilities.
How bad is it in Caracas, for example? Well, in the chapters marked "Blackout" Neuman gives us the breakdown of the national power grid (no experts left to fix the system) to the lack of water and fire prevention services, the decline of value in the Bolivar, the national currency, the violence directed against workers in the mining industry that goes unpunished, etc. The opposition is ineffectual, the Trump Administration's John Bolton's ham-handed attempt to sanction Caracas into submission is, laughably, fifty years out of date.
It's also sad because Venezuela should be a successful nation. Instead, it's a country where the haves have a lot and the have-nots struggle just to eat from day to day. The perils of ultra-nationalistic and populist government should not be lost on citizens of the United States given our own recent history of leaders who spin lies and excuses to their most ardent followers.
Neuman charts Venezuela's path the 1974 (the first big hike in global oil prices) to the 2020s. Chavez blew through a lot of money and has very little to show for it. The thing that made him different was he was a Havana-oriented socialist, not a free-market guy. But corruption coupled with the inability of political power in even a rich Latin American nation to respond to the consent of the governed has doomed millions of people to a failed state that shows no sign of short-term recovery.
How bad is it in Caracas, for example? Well, in the chapters marked "Blackout" Neuman gives us the breakdown of the national power grid (no experts left to fix the system) to the lack of water and fire prevention services, the decline of value in the Bolivar, the national currency, the violence directed against workers in the mining industry that goes unpunished, etc. The opposition is ineffectual, the Trump Administration's John Bolton's ham-handed attempt to sanction Caracas into submission is, laughably, fifty years out of date.
It's also sad because Venezuela should be a successful nation. Instead, it's a country where the haves have a lot and the have-nots struggle just to eat from day to day. The perils of ultra-nationalistic and populist government should not be lost on citizens of the United States given our own recent history of leaders who spin lies and excuses to their most ardent followers.
Neuman charts Venezuela's path the 1974 (the first big hike in global oil prices) to the 2020s. Chavez blew through a lot of money and has very little to show for it. The thing that made him different was he was a Havana-oriented socialist, not a free-market guy. But corruption coupled with the inability of political power in even a rich Latin American nation to respond to the consent of the governed has doomed millions of people to a failed state that shows no sign of short-term recovery.
July 9, 2024
Should be required reading! Journalistic history - Neuman tells the story of Venezuela's collapse through stories from interviews with Venezuelan citizens, government officials (from both Chavez's/Maduro's party and from the right), and news coverage from the crisis. He does, in my opinion, a really great job of eliciting the Venezuelan national story - what citizens tell themselves about the nation and how that informs the way the government and society works today. It's almost like ethnography.
I shared some excerpts with the other volunteers while I was working with Venezuelan migrants in Columbia and we had a little discussion afterward. Most asked for the book details so they could read the whole thing!
I shared some excerpts with the other volunteers while I was working with Venezuelan migrants in Columbia and we had a little discussion afterward. Most asked for the book details so they could read the whole thing!
January 26, 2026
“I want to be a citizen… I’m tired of being ‘the people.’”
Oh, so I really did not know what I was talking about in my freshman year spanish class articles on Guidó/Maduro.
This is outstanding journalism, both informative and deeply impactful. This book is an autopsy of Venezuela’s economic crisis and state failure, with a keen focus on the US’s role in mitigating and/or exacerbating the crisis with improvised (reckless) foreign policy.
A review simply cannot do this book justice, I need 2-3 hours of discussion minimum.
I think Neuman does a fair job establishing balance and nuance in his rendition. He calls the reader’s attention to the glaring paradoxes both within Venezuela and on the international stage. He does an excellent job of contrasting the big ‘-isms’ (and the respective belief systems of the -ism disciples) to lived experiences and fact. Take socialism, a critique of socialism at large falls flat if ‘socialism’ in the chavista format functions entirely at odds with its own ideological tenets.
I learned a tremendous amount (especially on fixed exchange and the currency black market). I really can’t stop thinking about it.
Oh, so I really did not know what I was talking about in my freshman year spanish class articles on Guidó/Maduro.
This is outstanding journalism, both informative and deeply impactful. This book is an autopsy of Venezuela’s economic crisis and state failure, with a keen focus on the US’s role in mitigating and/or exacerbating the crisis with improvised (reckless) foreign policy.
A review simply cannot do this book justice, I need 2-3 hours of discussion minimum.
I think Neuman does a fair job establishing balance and nuance in his rendition. He calls the reader’s attention to the glaring paradoxes both within Venezuela and on the international stage. He does an excellent job of contrasting the big ‘-isms’ (and the respective belief systems of the -ism disciples) to lived experiences and fact. Take socialism, a critique of socialism at large falls flat if ‘socialism’ in the chavista format functions entirely at odds with its own ideological tenets.
I learned a tremendous amount (especially on fixed exchange and the currency black market). I really can’t stop thinking about it.
May 26, 2022
A good read on the collapse of Venezuelan society due to the policies of authoritarian strong men Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro Readers also get some brief chapters on significant moments in the history of Venezuela. Neuman takes readers to different cities, industries, and socioeconomic classes to illustrate the totality of the collapse of Venezuela. While Chavez had many admirers in America on the political-left , due to both his oratory skills and alleged commitment to socialism, this book quite clearly illustrates there was no real ideology to Chavez other than monopolizing power. Maduro, lacking the charisma and political skills of his mentor, couldn't deal with falling oil prices and limit corruption, crime, and decay to somewhat manageable levels. Sadly, there are still some in America who think of Venezuela as some sort of utopian society (or use their talking points like the DSA and Justice Dems have done), even as millions of Venezuelan refugees flood South America, Florida, Texas, and other places. A worthwhile and sobering read.
January 13, 2023
Outstanding reporting here: this is a very informative analysis of, well, everything that's gone wrong in Venezuela over the past few decades, and how it has led to the current level of misery. Threaded through the history and insight are revealing anecdotes of life on the ground over the past few years, that serve to make the data into human stories.
This is engaging and at times jaw-dropping in its detail, and a perfect entry-point into learning about the Venezuela crises.
I would have welcomed some additional detail, honestly – how exactly Maduro manipulates federal judges and what happens when parties are barred from even competing in an election – but I ask these questions only because Neuman's book has provided me with such a strong foundation of knowledge, and I want to learn more. And isn't that the best feeling a non-fiction book can elicit?
This is engaging and at times jaw-dropping in its detail, and a perfect entry-point into learning about the Venezuela crises.
I would have welcomed some additional detail, honestly – how exactly Maduro manipulates federal judges and what happens when parties are barred from even competing in an election – but I ask these questions only because Neuman's book has provided me with such a strong foundation of knowledge, and I want to learn more. And isn't that the best feeling a non-fiction book can elicit?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews