New Books In Latin American Studies

The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market (Brill, 2026) is the latest book from Dr. Kristin Ciupa, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Regina. Published with Brill, this book provides a detailed and engaging account of the historical development of Venezuela’s political economy and interrelated oil industry. The book takes us from Venezuela prior to the advent of oil discovery where the economy was dependent on a limited range of export-oriented agricultural crops, all the way up to the Bolivarian government project instituted by Hugo Chavez. Of course, Venezuela has been at the centre of political turmoil at present, and it is crucial to get a strong, historical understanding of Venezuela’s political economy, connected as it is with broader regional and global developments, to more concretely comprehend the current moment. Ciupa situates Venezuela within not only the broader ‘Pink Tide’ that swept different parts of Latin America since the1