'Angeles Four' is a pretty good read because the author David Nott doesn't spare us any of the gruesome details of the rather major mishaps that this team of four very lucky guys experienced on their way to the summit of Angels Falls.

The Angels four team is composed of a South American climber named 'Timo' a North American climber named 'Vogel', a never been on a climb before neophyte that I will call 'The Doc', and lastly the chain smoking, 45 year old out of shape ex climber named David Nott. Timo and the Vogel seem to be reasonably competent climbers that are called upon to literally haul The Doc and David up the side of the cliff at times.

Two of the major mishaps on this climb are when 'The Doc' drops half of their climbing gear, the stove, and most of their food into the jungle 1000 feet below. Then of course one third of the way into the climb the author David Nott realizes that his physical condition is so poor that he can no longer reliably grip the rock.

I admire the writer for his honesty and candid assessment of his own frailties and for his candid description of a true 'epic' that seems to be full of miscalculation and ineptitude.

The one thing that shines through in this book is that this is the description of a real adventure. The tale is very different from the professionally guided yuppie adventures that can be had by anyone for a price in this era of cheap thrills. With no assurance of success these four individuals had a collective vision and armed only with their desire and limited resources succeeded in climbing three thousand feet of wet, slime covered and nearly vertical sand stone in the south American Jungle.

I recommend this book to any climber or general reader that is sick of reading stories about well to do but none the less chicken hearted yuppies that buy their mountaineering adventures from professional guides.

The most unfortunte thing about this book is that it is poorly constructed and falls apart easily under even light "travel" strain. On the other hand, despite horrific maps, it is a fairly good guide. Thorough coverages is provided for both the Gran Sabana and Amazonas regions, including helpful narratives of people who have undertaken various explorations. It is especially useful if you plan to drive, as it occasionally mentions hotels with garages and gives detailed information on certain routes.

Buy Bradt for the guide, but Lonely Planet Venezuela for the maps.

Dumont's study on the Panare Indians of Venezuela is by far the most narcisstic, self-centered anthropological study I have ever read. While any anthropologist brings in to the fieldwork experience their own biases and assumptions, Dumont takes this reality too far. Studying the Panare's affect on himself, and his own affect on the Panare is an interesting approach, but may have detracted from the reader receiving the real essence of the people. However, the study was well documented and fairly interesting.

I've got this book from an university libary. It' based on taped narrations from Warao Indians about their life, like school, living in the familiy, work and as well how they see the influence of modern times in their environment. The informations are quiete old, but I think it's worth to know about their thoughts and not to have a description about them from authors of the modern world. Nevertheless this book is influenced by etnologists who translated and wrote the narrations. But prices we found on book market are not worth for the quality of printing and paper.

A difficult book to read due to the Yanomamo abhorance of calling people by name, and the sentence structure of the language. Once you overcome this it is a facinating, and probably the most accurate, look from a woman's perspective into the culture of the people.

Yoroko presents one of the most remarkable pieces of photographic material to be found on the Panare of Central Venezuela. Yet, the outstanding pictorial presentation is somewhat spoiled by the elementary nature, and perhaps even emptiness, of the written material. As a 'coffee-table' piece, is by all means an ideal pseudo-anthropologist's dream, but for the more academic, I suggest the works of Professor Paul Henley and Jean-Paul Dumont.

I took this book with me when I moved to Venezuela. Unfortunately, it did not help at all when I arrived. There was not enough information and it was very out-dated.

There has been too many changes in Venezuela since January 1998, even the name of the country has changed. This book is okay to obtain a general overview of the country, however do not count on it to find accurated information on hotels, stores, restaurants, or even local airlines, most places do not exist anymore, and regarding prices they change everyday.

This book was very helpful to me in my travels to Venezuela. It describes the culture and customs of Venezuela specifically and accurately. I would recommed this book to anyone who is planning on traveling to Venezuela.

It is hard to talk about Chavez without emotion, without passion for me. I left Venezuela over three years ago because I decided I didn't want my family to be raised in what was to come (and I don't regret having left), so I will not deny that I am an open anti-chavista. Now, on to this author and his views...

First of all, the period covered in the book (before 2000) could be a pretext for the author's views, since (like he did in his book), many intellectuals, leftwing and not-so-leftwing too, were supportive of the Lieutenant Colonel back until 2001 even: after all and although I did not like him from the start, Chavez could have been a true alternative to decades of corruption and traditional politics in Venezuela. Also many, many middle-class, educated people (to my dismay, some still to this day) supported him. I emphasize the word "educated", because it is no surprise that his demagogical approach results appealing to the lower-income strata of Venezuela, much like it was the case with previous Presidents.

On a side note, I saw the reaction that a figure like Castro provoked in the media in Venezuela (in case you're wondering, I am from Venezuela) during the visit for the ceremony where Carlos Andres Perez took on the presidency for the second time: they were running around Castro like puppies, fascinated my the "comandante". Therefore, it doesn't surprise me that Gott acknowledges that "reporters have always been susceptible to the charms of Latin America's radical strongmen, and I am no exception".

What's my point here? Gott's views cannot be excused as being accidentally biased in this book, simply because Chavez had not taken his mask off by the time he wrote his book, allowing the unaccounted deaths of dozens of his opposers, the looting of the country's main industry (PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company), and the gradual shut-down of the economy leading to shortages in basic foods and medicines. Gott's views (is it coincidence that his last name means "God" in German?) had not changed much by early 2003....

This book is just another leftist manifesto, supportive of the barbaric attrocities of a regime who is perfectly willing to say with a straight face that the country cannot be in better shape and blame the opposition for everything, while inflation, unemployment and several other macroeconomic indicators are at their worse levels in over a century, in spite of the fact that the country has over $16 billion in international reserves. Sadly, I can't say that I entirely support the work of the opposition either, one that has come out of the struggle against Chavez as a fragmented block, and one that doesn't show enough signs of acknowledgement that politics-as-we-know-it will no longer work in Venezuela after this past few years of political and social nightmare.

Knowledge of a country or expertise about a region doesn't give the author's opinion any more credibility than the opinion of any of the government's spokespersons.

As the author says, few books have been written in English about contemporary Venezuela, and a lot of what is being written in Spanish, for readers abroad, is too biased, incidental and poorly researched to be of any help in order to understand the deep political changes that are taking place in Simón Bolívar's nation. With his book "In the Shadow of the Liberator, Hugo Chávez and the Transformation of Venezuela" Professor Gott contributes to foster an objective and deeper knowledge of the Venezuelan political process led by President Chávez. Gott analyzes Venezuela's recent history;the Carlos Andrés Pérez's Presidency and the "Caracazo" of 1989, the military rebellions of 1992, the Rafael Caldera's government, the fall of the Ancien Régime and the election of Hugo Chávez as President, the formation of the Constituent Assembly and the future of the Bolivarian dream that Chávez endorses, the economy, the Legacy of Bolívar, and the impact of Chávez in Latin America, in a well docummented story enriched with on-site experiences and interviews with leading Venezuelan politicians. Gott also writes about the Reform of the Judiciary, the rights of indigenous peoples, the military and civil society and other changes that Chávez is pushing through his political agenda to conclude, as a majority of Venezuelans do, that President Chávez is an honest man "with the interest of his people at heart" It is an excellent book, not the last word in English - I hope- about a history that is still being written, but a first and rather good approach by an English writing scholar that will undoubtedly help in understanding the present and future of Venezuela.

This book is pretty true to the Venezuelan political system. Although no one likes to admit it, one of the main things that worries the racist "middle class" (as is typical of Middle classes in Latin America, they consist of about 10% of the population) in Venezuela (perhaps the only middle class that lived for much of its life supported by the incumbent, plundering governments, until Chavez arrived: hence one of their reasons to hate him) is the fact that Chavez is not "white, blonde, and green eyed". The truth of the matter is that Chavez has not wrecked the Venezuelan economy. The people striking and closing down other's businesses at gunpoint have. And yes, history has already told: he's the only president (perhaps in the world?) to have won 5 consecutive elections by landslide in 2 years. It's funny how his opposition have gone from calling him a Hitlerite to a Castro-Communist (do these supposedly intelligent people realise that they are opposite ends of a political spectrum?!)