PJ Vogt

And unlike most book clubs, his goes somewhere.

It leads to his famous failed coup, the one that ends with him live on national TV telling his followers that he's stopping for now.

Chavez leaves prison in 1994.

Four years later, he uses his new national profile to run for president.

He wins.

Chapter 6.

Halo, Presidente.

And so part of the story of Chavez, even in the beginning, is going to be about his relationship to the country's oil reserves and the price of oil when he takes power.

Can you tell me about that?

And then the other big thing that changes is just the price of oil, which, as you said, at the beginning of his presidency was at $8 a barrel.

It just shoots up.

At one point, it's at $100 a barrel.

I mean, it rises as high as around $160.

So you have this like huge, huge, huge, you both, the supply gets constricted a little bit by the U.S.

entering Iraq, but what you really have is like a huge demand surge because of China.

Chapter seven, total power.

Alejandro says that Hugo Chavez did not immediately use the immense gusher of money pouring out of Venezuela's oil business.

There were other matters to attend to.

One, the military.

While the coup against Chavez had been unsuccessful, it had revealed the members of the military who were disloyal.