Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela

By Raúl Gallegos

Categories: Business & Money, Politics & Social Sciences

Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela (2016) is a book by journalist Raúl Gallegos, who reported from Caracas for years. Gallegos explains how decades of petroleum wealth, price swings and economic mismanagement drove Venezuela into shortage, inflation and political crisis under successive governments. He traces the resource curse through boom spending, currency controls and the collapse of ordinary food and goods markets.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “My book of the week is, "Crude Nation: How Oil Riches Ruined Venezuela" by Raul Gallegos. This briskly written book nicely explains how the oil curse has worked in Venezuela especially in the Chavez era. Some of the greatest reserves of petroleum in the world have been stolen and mismanaged so badly that the result is the world's worst hyperinflation, corruption and now collapse.”