Books about Venezuela from Amazon.com

Today is doomsday for a young Venezuelan Indian boy's beloved rain forest and its animal life—unless he and a visiting naturalist can save it. "George makes drama large and small out of the minute-by-minute events in an ecosystem . . . gripping ecological theater." —C. "An example of nonfiction writing at its best." —SLJ.

Notable 1990 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)
Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children 1990 (NSTA/CBC).
Price: $1.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Discover Venezuela

Get drenched by nearly 1km of cascading water beneath the world's highest waterfall.
Sink your toes into sugar-white sands on an uninhabited island in Archipelago Los Roques.
Crunch on chocolate-coated hormigas culonas - deep-fried Amazonian ants with big, juicy rear ends.
Hear howler monkeys roar as you cruise the wildlife-rich channels of the Delta del Orinoco.

In This Guide:

Five authors, 187 days of in-country research, 495 arepas, 52 detailed maps, one paragliding accident.
You asked for it, we delivered: more off-the-beaten-path coverage of the Andes and Los Llanos.
Expanded focus on sustainable travel helps readers plan environmentally and socially responsible adventures.
Content updated daily - visit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews and traveler suggestions.
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Price: $14.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Venezuela under Hugo Chávez could be a model for peaceful revolution—or it could all be undone by the specters of the past.

Since coming to power in 1998, the Chávez government has inspired both fierce internal debate, and horror amongst Western governments accustomed to counting on an obeisant regime in the oil-rich state. In this rich and resourceful study, Greg Wilpert exposes the self-serving logic behind much middle-class opposition to Venezuela's elected leader, and explains the real reason for their alarm. He argues that the Chávez government has instituted one of the world's most progressive constitutions, but warns that it has yet to overcome the dangerous specters of the country's past: its culture of patronage and clientelism, its corruption, and its support for personality cults, all fuelled by the attention and interference of a succession of US administrations..
Price: $16.07 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The only up-to-date book on the democratically elected president of Venezuela, and the US-assisted attempt—and failure—to depose him.

The only first-hand report on contemporary Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, by veteran correspondent Richard Gott, places the country's controversial and charismatic president in historical perspective, and examines his plans and programs. This new edition has a chapter on the attempted and failed military coup, Venezuela's recent recall election, and discusses US covert intervention against this democratically elected public official.

The spectre of Simon Bolívar hovers once again over Latin America as the aims and ambitions of the Liberator are taken up by Comandante Hugo Chávez. Welcomed by the inhabitants of the teeming shantytowns of Caracas as their potential savior, and greeted by Washington with considerable alarm, this former golpista-turned-democrat has already begun the most wide-ranging transformation of oil-rich Venezuela for half a century, and dramatically affected the political debate throughout Latin America..
Price: $10.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Venezuela has an immensely rich bird fauna, with 1,381 known species, many of them found nowhere else in the world. This spectacularly illustrated, comprehensive, and up-to-date guide brings together under one cover much of what is known about these species Its users can identify all the birds in this vast country, from the Caribbean coast in the north to the Amazonian jungles in the south, from the Andes in the west to the Gran Sabana plateau in the east.

With a completely new text by Steven Hilty, Birds of Venezuela is a greatly expanded and thoroughly reformatted successor to the pioneering Guide to the Birds of Venezuela (Princeton,1978). It includes sixty-seven beautiful color and black-and-white plates, most by the well-known artists John Gwynne and Guy Tudor, as well as numerous line drawings. The plates and drawings together--almost half of them never before published--depict most of Venezuela's bird species. Introductory chapters cover physical geography, climate, biogeography, vegetation and habitats, conservation, migration, and the history of ornithology in Venezuela. A gallery of forty-four stunning color habitat photos and color habitat and relief maps complete the opening section.

Detailed range maps plot collection localities and sight records--a unique feature--for almost all species. Plumage descriptions are provided for each bird, as is extensive information on voice, behavior, and status. More than 800 bibliographic entries accompany the text, making this book an invaluable and broad-based reference to the avifauna of not only Venezuela but much of northern South America. Treating nearly 40 percent of the continent's bird species, Birds of Venezuela is the definitive resource for all birders with an eager eye on this splendorous country and the surrounding region.

• The most comprehensive, up-to-date, and best illustrated guide to the birds of Venezuela
• Covers all 1,381 known species and their subspecies from the Caribbean coast to the jungles of the Amazon, from the Andes to the Gran Sabana plateau--nearly 40 percent of all bird species in South America
• Completely new text accompanied by more than 800 bibliographic entries
• Strikingly illustrated with 67 color and black & white plates and numerous line drawings
• 44 stunning color habitat photos and color habitat and relief maps
• Detailed range maps for each species

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Price: $35.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Paradox of Plenty explains why, in the midst of two massive oil booms in the 1970s, oil-exporting governments as different as Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria, Algeria, and Indonesia chose common development paths and suffered similarly disappointing outcomes. Meticulously documented and theoretically innovative, this book illuminates the manifold factors--economic, political, and social--that determine the nature of the oil state, from the coherence of public bureaucracies, to the degree of centralization, to patterns of policy-making.
Karl contends that oil countries, while seemingly disparate, are characterized by similar social classes and patterns of collective action. In these countries, dependence on petroleum leads to disproportionate fiscal reliance on petrodollars and public spending, at the expense of statecraft. Oil booms, which create the illusion of prosperity and development, actually destabilize regimes by reinforcing oil-based interests and further weakening state capacity.
Karl's incisive investigation unites structural and choice-based approaches by illuminating how decisions of policymakers are embedded in institutions interacting with domestic and international markets. This approach--which Karl dubs "structured contingency"--uses a state's leading sector as the starting point for identifying a range of decision-making choices, and ends by examining the dynamics of the state itself..
Price: $24.25 [Notify me when price goes down.]