"The only first-hand report on contemporary Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, 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 Bolivar hovers once again over Latin America as the aims and ambitions of the Liberator are taken up by Chavez. Welcomed by the inhabitants of the teeming shanty towns of Caracas as their potential saviour, 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. "--Jacket.