When Víctor Paz Estenssoro began his fourth and final term as president in August 1985, his Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (mnr) government inherited an economy in a staggering state of crisis. Although hyperinflation was the biggest concern, Bolivia, like other countries in Latin America at the time, also labored under massive amounts of debt to the International Monetary Fund. Paz Estenssoro appointed the president of the Bolivian Senate, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, as minister of planning with the charge to implement dramatic changes to the Bolivian economy. Sánchez de Lozada applied “shock therapy” to bring about a rapid “structural...