Ep 19: Venezuela and the curse of oil

Is it a curse to be a rich country? Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserve, yet its people face seemingly endless economic depression.

How did this contradiction happen?

Join Triploi as we explore Venezuela's journey from Spanish colony to the Bolivarian revolution, to the discovery of the world’s largest oil reserve, to economic collapse, and now imminent war with the United States.

This is the story of a nation caught between the ghost of Simón Bolívar's dream and the enduring reality of living next door to world’s most aggressive and violent superpower.

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References and reading list:

• Eduardo Galeano - Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (1971)
• Greg Grandin - Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism (2006)
• Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)
• Mark Weisbrot - Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong About the Global Economy (2015)
• Jeffrey Sachs - A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism (2018)
• George Ciccariello-Maher - We Created Chávez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution (2013)
• Fernando Coronil - The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela (1997)
• Michael Parenti - Against Empire (1995)
• William Blum - Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (2004)
• Vijay Prashad - The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (2007)
• Walter Rodney - How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972)
• Simón Bolívar - Selected Writings (various, compiled editions)
• Terry Lynn Karl - The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (1997)
• UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan - Report on Venezuela (2021)