Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Boston. 1979. Houghton Mifflin. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0395279453. Foreword by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. INtroduction by Frank Tugwell. 418 pages. hardcover. keywords: Venezuela History Oil Politics Economics Latin America. FROM THE PUBLISHER-Romulo Betancourt, Venezuela's former president, played a leading role in bringing free elections to his country and in taming the multinational oil companies that operated there. This book, written from the perspective of one of the world's most ardent advocates of democracy and economic egalitarianism, is a political history of his country from the 1880's to 1956. Betancourt focuses primarily upon the relationship of oil, economies and politics. Early in his political career, he perceived a strong affinity between political dictatorships and the managerial elite of foreign oil companies, and when he first assumed leadership of Venezuela in 1945, Betancourt began severely taxing foreign oil companies. ‘For the first time, ' he writes, ‘the income of the nation from oil was appreciably greater than that of the industry. ' Eventually Betancourt managed what Franklin Tugwell describes in his Introduction as ‘the most orderly and successful nationalization in the history of oil. ' Betancourt's field of political vision went well beyond the parameters of his own country however. Seeing that true economic stability and independence for Venezuela would require cooperation between the oil-producing nations, he became one of the chief architects of OPEC. This volume was written during Betancourt's ten-year exile after the elected government headed by the famous novelist Romulo Gallegos was overthrown by Perez JimEnez who put a temporary stop to the reformist policies of Betancourt's party, Accion Democràtica. ‘I should warn the reader that he will not find these pages written in serenity, ‘cautions Betancourt. ‘I write as I think and as I feel. Venezuela is in my bones. ' After his election as president in 1958, Betancourt retained his post for only one five-year term. ‘Few political events in the turbulent 1960's, ' writes Tugwell, ‘could rival the spectacle of the beleaguered Venezuelan president, battling for the privilege not to retain power, but to turn it over to a freely elected successor. ' The work of a visionary statesman and a great internationalist, VENEZUELA. OIL AND POLITICS is indispensable for anyone concerned with the past and future development of Latin America. inventory #1399.
