Kozloff, Nikolas. Revolution! South America Book Report

And there is also a clear, seductive appeal of U.S. culture which Kozloff also does not deny. As much as Chavez and company may opposed globalization, there is no escaping the new global economy.

Kozloff's book is written from an unapologetically leftist stance. He is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, and Revolution! was mainly reviewed by leftist magazines and bloggers. However, it offers an important counterweight to the commonly-expressed idea that socialism is dead. The book is grounded in specificity and historically contextualizes each individual leftist movement. Despite the fact that it focuses on Venezuela, it does not make sweeping generalizations about the region based upon this specific example. Kozloff is careful to point out the unique features of Venezuela, such as the nation's vast oil wealth.

Another of the book's strengths is the fact that it presents history from a Latin American perspective, rather than a U.S. perspective. It forces the reader to see the revolutions, not from the view of an American who might be suspicious of socialism, but from nations which have chiasmic divides between the haves and the have-nots.While Chavez's own abuses of power are noted, Kozloff makes the reader understand why to many people these are less important than the equality he is perceived as restoring to a government that used to solely favor the rich. Chavez's anti-imperialism is also rendered more comprehensible, if not excusable, in light of the region's history.

Kozloff's work is a careful balance between polemic and history, and presents the abuses of the left and the right, although it focuses upon the latter. Even for a reader who may disagree with the author's politics, Revolution! sheds light upon the question of why leftism and anti-Americanism remains so strident in Latin America. The book enables foreign readers to see the world from an insider's perspective.

Works Cited

Jacobs, Ron. "The new Left in Latin America." Counterpunch. April 12, 2008.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2008/04/12/the-new-new-left-in-latin-america / [September 7, 2011]

Kozloff, Nikolas. Revolution!….....