About the presentation: At dawn on January 3rd, US troops flew into Venezuela’s capital Caracas, seized President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and flew them to New York where they await trial on charges ranging from narcoterrorism to possession of explosives. The overnight raid marked a dramatic culmination of a months-long build up of US military power, attacks, and threats of US invasion. Yet in the immediate wake, most of Maduro’s government remains in power, and despite early signs of tension, appears now to be working in lockstep with US demands for oil concessions. The result has been mounting questions both about the future, and the past, of Venezuela, the US, and the relationship between both, questions accentuated even more in the wake of devastating twin earthquakes in June that left thousands dead and major swaths of the country in ruins: what became of the project of “chavismo” that ruled Venezuela for a quarter century? Are we witnessing a new type of “regime change” or a return to old forms of US imperialism? And most importantly, what is the prospect for a just, democratic future for Venezuelans, whether in or out of the country, when the nation’s very sovereignty appears to be in question? Join Prof. Alejandro Velasco, historian of modern Venezuela at New York University, to examine the longer sweep of Venezuela’s political and economic history leading to its present, and its deeply uncertain future, with larger implications not only for the country but for the region, for the US, and for the world at large.
About the presenter: Alejandro Velasco is Associate Professor of Latin American History at New York University, and Associate Dean of Faculty at the NYU Gallatin School. He was Executive Editor of the NACLA Report on the Americas from 2015 to 2021. An expert on Venezuela’s modern history, especially social movements, urban politics, and democracy in the 20th and 21st centuries, he is the author of Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela, which won the 2016 Fernando Coronil Prize for Best Book on Venezuela awarded by the Section on Venezuelan Studies of the Latin American Studies Association. His research has received support from the Social Science Research Council, the American Historical Association, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and others. A frequent media contributor, his editorials and analysis have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, NACLA, Nueva Sociedad, BBC Mundo, In These Times, The Washington Post, Current History, BBC History Magazine, and others. Velasco also frequently contributes radio and television commentary in outlets including NPR, MSNBC/MS Now, Al Jazeera, NBC, CBS, France 24, the BBC, Spectrum News, and the CBC, and to podcasts including Throughline, The Dig, Planet Money, Reveal, Search Engine, On with Kara Swisher, and others.