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How did Latin America's exceptional democracy become a nearly failed state? Why would a leader firmly in control lead one of the planet's richest countries into a humanitarian crisis? Conventional wisdom blames the madness of a populist leader who squandered an oil fortune. In Venezuela's Collapse, Carlos Lizarralde offers an alternative account that places race, ethnicity, and the struggle over resources at the center of the Hugo Chavez story.The book chronicles 500 years of demographic and economic strands that came together in 1998 with the election of a dashing new President. By following Chavismo's dismantling of the liberal state, the ransacking of public enterprise"