This week it was my privilege to be invited to chair a book launch at the University of Sydney for the publication of Democracy, Revolution and Geopolitics in Latin America, edited by Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández. The book is a major statement on geopolitics, aiming to overcome disciplinary confines in order to offer fresh insights into both state and geopolitical struggles in Venezuela. Stemming from a workshop hosted at the University of Sydney in 2012, prior to the death of Hugo Chávez, the book delivers compelling analysis of contemporary Venezuela, addressing issues such as regional integration, development policy, community media, indigenous rights, and contradictions over struggles linked to the right to the city. In the week that Ernesto Laclau passed away, it is significant that the editor of the project, Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández, frames the book’s perspective within a focus on collective political identity construction in a manner that transcends the boundaries of “domestic” and “international” in the on-going process of institutionalising the Bolivarian project. In more detail, what else does the book offer to interested readers?
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