“An Existential Conflict” Chávez's early goal was to be a famous baseball player and his hero was Venezuelan pitcher Isaías "Látigo" Chávez -- no relation. But instead Chávez enrolled in a military academy and in 1971, after becoming a full cadet, he went alone to the old cemetery where Látigo Chávez was buried and came to terms with where he felt history beckoned him.

“Epilogue” The concluding pages of this biography assess Hugo Chávez's impact well beyond Venezuela's borders -- in particular, the United States and the Bush-Chávez dynamic.