Venezuela Speaks! Voices from the Grassroots

by Carlos Martinez (editor), Michael Fox (Editor), JoJo Farrell (Editor)

A collection of interviews with activists and other contributors, this compelling oral history details Venezuela’s bloodless uprising and reorganization. For the last decade, Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution” has captured international attention. Poverty, inequality, and unemployment have all dropped, while health, education, and living standards have seen a commensurate rise—and this chronicle is the real, bottom-up account. The stories shed light on the complex facets within the revolution, detailing the change in such realities as community media to land reform, cooperatives to communal councils, and the labor movement to the Afro-Venezuelan network. Offering a different perspective than that of the international mainstream media, which has focused predominantly on Venezuela’s controversial president, Hugo Chavez, these examples of democracy in action illustrate the vast cultural, economic, and racial differences within the country—all of which have impacted the current South American state.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Carlos Martinez, MPH, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and core faculty member of the Global and Community Health program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Reviews

[Michelle]

I absolutely loved this book . It is so inspiring , it follows around a lot of grassroots organizers in Venezuela during Chavez’s presidency and wow . I will learn a lot about the Chavez administration and how folks were able to progress during his time. It shows the goods and also challenges of his government. I am hoping the U.S. becomes a socialist country and if we do listening to the organizers in Venezuela def will help us. Chavez did have some things in his presidency that didn’t help the ppl but that is little far and few .What this book helped teach me is he was the first president that listened to his ppl. Such a progressive country I love it. I also loved hearing all the advocates and what they did to help folks bc it wasn’t all Chavez in fact it was the ppl that led to the progressiveness . Great book , taught me a lot about Venezuela .

[Comrade Zupa Ogórkowa]

Excellent read. Interviews with various activists representing different radical/revolutionary organizations in Venezuela, doing work from Barrio organizing to agricultural land appropriation to union building to setting up an indigenous university to revolutionary tv/radio etc etc. fascinating learning about the work done pre Chavez to how the work has changed (for better or for worse) post Chavez, learning about the contradictions within Venezuelan society that still need to be resolved and the on going work to make the state continue to prioritize the people first and foremost- that a socialist president is not when the struggle ends. As one of the interviewees put it that change in Venezuelan society would come from the people and that Chavez is just a “doorway” for those changes to be realized.

[Care]

Pretty sad to read this decade-plus-old book and know that working-class Venezuelans are in a worse place now.

[Brendan Campisi]

An absolutely captivating collection of firsthand accounts from the ground level of the Bolivarian Revolution. I'm glad I read it after We Created Chavez because the former gives an overall analysis and historical context while the individual narratives in this book flesh out the details of those wider processes.

[Arash]

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