"We Created Chavez provides a systematic, bottom-up approach to Venezuelan politics from 1958 to the present. It offers a much-needed new perspective on Hugo Chavez's rise to power. Writing in a lively style and demonstrating a thorough command of the issues and personalities in recent Venezuelan history, George Ciccariello-Maher has produced a book essential to understanding the phenomenon of 'Chavismo,' which has attracted widespread interest throughout the world."—Steve Ellner, author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chavez Phenomenon

"In the United States, accounts of Venezuela have been fixated on the figure of Hugo Chavez. We Created Chavez breaks with this obsession, instead showing the dynamic and contradictory relationship that exists between Venezuela's president and the social forces that gave rise to and sustain the government. It is required reading for anyone wishing to understand the internal dynamics of social change underway in Venezuela today."—Miguel Tinker Salas, author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela

“Ciccariello-Maher’s history of the Venezuelan left is essential to understanding the Chavez era."—Dorothy Kronick, The New Republic