Book: The History of Venezuela *1/2

Tarver, H. Michael & Frederick, Julia C.
2006 (Hardcover) Palgrave Macmillan (paperback - this edition) Palgrave Macmillan
(nonfiction)

Ok - so probably not too many people stumbled upon this website looking for this book because this book is not a book someone would seek out unless they were interested specifically in the history of Venezuela. But I read it and I am reviewing it here anyway. Remember, this is more a personal journal that I just happen to be sharing with a broader community.

First, what was my purpose for reading it? Well, summer is here and my plan is to read some history and to also concentrate on the fiction of Paul Auster. I read this particular book because I am a teacher (5th grade) and every year our school does a unit of study on Spanish speaking countries of the world. This year I chose Venezuela. But this is an adult book, so why bother? There are plenty of informative children's books that I could have used. Well, this is my rational:

While lecturing/discussing topics of history with my students, I noticed something about the textbook. It was really boring. No wonder the kids are less than enthralled with Social Studies. Here is a paraphrased (and inaccurate - it's based on my memory) excerpt from the text about the Puritans in colonial New England and the decision of some dissenters to start there own Christian branch separate from the Church of England and consequently founded new colonies:

There was a trial about the dissenters beliefs and one person decided to start a colony in Connecticut...

Where's the story? What happened at the trial? No, all that is mentioned in a couple of sentences are these basic little facts about what happened. The story, which is what draws people to History is missing. I'm sure there is an intriguing and interesting story in there. But it's too general and vague.

Now I notice that when I add interesting detail to our discussions (ie. - how the Puritans punished people in the stocks and how incredibly intolerant they were to other religions even though they themselves were seeking religious freedom) the students seem to be more interested. When they write what they have learned, I see that this added information sticks with even the lowest students even though they quite often have confused some of the facts.

So I chose to read this book to enhance my knowledge of Venezuela and so that I could share interesting stories with my students. Well, I certainly did learn more about Venezuela, but there were few interesting things to share with the students. It has been about 2 weeks since I read this book and nothing comes to me that is "memorable". It, like the text books, is written in very broad terms. Perhaps it's because the topic is so broad. And maybe because there were many presidents, too many presidents to keep track of, because of the violent way that Venezuela, like many Latin American countries, changed governments.

Quite frequently, the information was basic. They would name the new president, list (not describe) his programs, his compadres, achievements and his beliefs. I was going to take a quote from the book to demonstrate this, but I don't have permission and I don't want to run the risk of copyright infringement. Needless to say, this book may have lots of information and facts, but it is written (relatively at least) in an academic style. It's not a well written story. It doesn't make me want to stay up all night finding out what happens next. I find that problem frequently with nonfiction and especially history. Much of it is not very well written (I don't mean grammatically, but that it's not very interesting to read). The content of the book has to enough to satisfy the reader's thirst for knowledge. In a perfect world, the book has an interesting content AND is well written at the same time. I know it is possible. I wanted to list some of those books, but then I would have to describe them here and that is beyond the scope of this entry.

To be fair, there were some interesting discussions that appeared more in the latter half of the book as Venezuela became a more modern nation. Some of those portions are when Venezuela becomes more democratic. They were able to maintain a single president for a longer time, so that perhaps there were more details to write about. The time period of the Cuban Revolution was interesting because it had a direct influence on Venezuelan politics. The book also ends with an interesting discussion Hugo Chavez. Is there anyone out there that think he is a good man? I ask that, because this books seems to be very anti - Chavez. Of course there may be a good reason for that, but someone must think he is good for something.