The bold and charismatic president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, does not easily fit into a mold. Richard Gott, author of a comprehensive work on the Latin American guerrilla movement published in 1970, examines the diverse strands that influenced Chávez and his heterogeneous movement. He devotes separate chapters to the lives of three nineteenth-century figures: Simón Bolívar, his tutor Simón Rodríguez, and the antioligarchic general Ezequiel Zamora. In the rest of the book, Gott also moves across time and space by looking at the nationalistic regimes of Generals Omar Torrijos (Panama) and Juan Velasco Alvarado (Peru), and even makes reference to Charles de Gaulle and the right-wing Argentine writer Noberto Ceresole in an effort to trace influences and make comparisons. Gott concludes that Chávez “follows in the footsteps” of Torrijos and Velasco “but with a different agenda . . . having learned from their mistakes,” the most important of which is...
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