Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce

During the forty or so years that preceded Hugo Chavez’s seizing of power, Venezuela had the most stable democracy in Latin America, the fastest-growing economy and the highest standard of living in the region. After Chavez seized power in 1999, however, things have changed radically. Today, Venezuela can no longer be seen as a democracy and rather than attracting immigrants as it once did, Venezuelans themselves are fleeing the country. Yet, somehow, the vast majority of contemporary references to Venezuela and to Chavez’s rule are laudatory.

In The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Farce, A.C. Clark corrects this warped take on Hugo Chavez and the “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela and skewers those grotesquely admiring portraits of Mr. Chavez painted by panegyrists from Noam Chomsky to Sean Penn. Clark explores Chavez’s embarrassing public displays, perilous policy platforms and close relationships with rogue states to reveal Chavez for what he truly is: a dangerous “buffoon” leading a once prosperous nation down a path to ruin.

Most shockingly, Clark exposes both Chavez’s ambitions for asymmetrical warfare against the United States and Venezuela’s insidious lobbying network within our own borders. In the end, The Revolutionary Has No Clothes is the definitive portrait of one of the world’s depraved leaders and a disturbing chronicle of Venezuela’s decline from a prosperous democracy to an autocratic bully-state.