Comandante The Life and Legacy of Hugo Chávez

* In cool, lucid prose, Rory Carroll unpicks the threads that weave together to form a modern-day dictatorship, no less sinister for its relative absence of bloodshed. The portrait of Venezuela that emerges is as nuanced as it is ultimately chilling -- Michela Wrong author of In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz * Rory Carroll's brilliant portrait of Chavez reads like a fast-paced novel of ego run amok, an ego that happens to be attached to a masterful politician, a dynamo of energy and charisma, and a colossus of managerial ineptitude. The Comandante is by turns heartbreaking, maddening, absurd, and surreal, a truly epic story of promise squandered and opportunities lost -- Ben Fountain author of Billy Lynn's Long Half-time Walk * Comandante provides an impressively well-researched and readable portrait... Carroll's book should serve as a useful reminder of what el Comandante did and didn't achieve The New York Times * A fine, timely book The Economist * This beautifully written and acutely perceptive book amounts to a lyrical meditation on the nature of power ... [Comandante] will deserve to be the definitive work on Chavez in the English language -- David Blair The Daily Telegraph * An English-language account to accompany the best of those by the region's writers ... this book, by turns personal, wry and wise, is required reading -- Tom Hennigan Irish Times * In good reporter fashion, he [Rory Carroll] diligently tracks down his sources, turning up a colourful cast of red-shirted Chavista loyalists, bitter political opponents, and the everyday Venezuelans in between. What emerges is a more intimate image of Chavez than his own propaganda allows... true drama lies not in a story's ending but in the twists and turns it takes to get there. On those terms, Comandante delivers -- Oliver Balch Independent on Sunday * A well-considered and painfully fair epitaph for the Chavez regime -- John Sweeny Literary Review * An excellent appraisal of the charismatic leader ... Carroll gets as close as any outsider to life inside the palace. What emerges is a portrait of a politician with a magnetic people's touch but a woeful grasp of management -- Oliver Balch The Guardian * [A] deeply informative, sprightly chronicle of Venezuela's dizzying journey under its Comandante...Here is a lively portrait of a new Latin American genus: the democratically elected caudillo Washington Post * A compellingly written, keenly reported portrait of Venezuela -- Julia Seig Financial Times * Carroll uses interviews and anecdotes effectively to describe Chavez's bizarre court -- Giles Milton Mail on Sunday * Love Chavez or hate him, this is a brilliant portrait layered out in words -- Lou Pendergrast More2Read * Carroll deftly retells the familiar narrative and then adds something new -- Dorothy Kronick The New Republic * Rory Carroll was in prime position to observe the Chavez regime and that is what he gives readers of this book. The distant judgments can come later -- Douglas Osler The Scotsman * Rory Carroll is an excellent journalist and gifted storyteller, and in this book, he tells the tale of Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez with admirable style and insight. A pleasurable read; highly recommended -- Jon Lee Anderson, Author Of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life * Superb, witty and subtle... Carroll listens to the people, catching shades, inflections, blighted hopes, distilling common decency Oldie