This essay reviews the following works:

El giro dependentista latinoamericano: Los orígenes de la teoría marxista de la dependencia. Edited by Juan Cristóbal Cárdenas Castro and Raphael Lana Seabra. Santiago: Ariadna, 2022. Pp. 426. Open access e-book: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/57860. ISBN: 9566095570.

Teorías del imperialismo y la dependencia desde el Sur Global. Edited by Néstor Kohan. Buenos Aires: Amauta Insurgente and Cienflores, 2022. Pp. 388. Free e-book online. ISBN: 9874066040.

The Dialectics of Dependency. By Ruy Mauro Marini. Edited by Amanda Latimer and Jaime Osorio. Translated by Amanda Latimer. New York: Monthly Review, 2022. Pp. 202. $26.00 paperback, $89.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781583679821

Dependency, Neoliberalism and Globalization in Latin America. By Carlos Eduardo Martins. Translated by Jacob Lagnado. Chicago: Haymarket, 2020. Pp. ix + 349. $28.00 paperback. ISBN: 9781642593594.

Rethinking Development: Marxist Perspectives. By Ronaldo Munck. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. Pp. xxiv + 213. $139.99 paperback, $139.99 hardcover, $109.00 e-book. ISBN: 9783030738136.

Reproducción del capital, Estado y sistema mundial: Estudios desde la teoría marxista de la dependencia. By Jaime Osorio. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2020. Pp. 264. $1.99 e-book. ISBN: 9587831144.

Teoría marxista de la dependencia: Historia, fundamentos, debates y contribuciones. By Jaime Osorio. Los Polvorines: Ediciones UNGS, 2016. Pp. 336. Free e-book online. ISBN: 9789876302333.

Debates latinoamericanos: Indianismo, desarrollo, dependencia y populismo. By Maristella Svampa. Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2018. Pp. 572. Free e-book online. ISBN: 6124760932.

Until a few years ago, Venezuelans and their historians held black and white notions about the regimes that had governed the country after it became a centralized state in the early twentieth century. As Venezuelan historian Santiago Gerardo Suárez pointed out, “The victor writes history.” And indeed, most portrayals of Venezuelan rulers after 1908 were strongly colored by the roles played by leading members of the political parties that emerged triumphant in 1958 when the modern democratic period was ushered in (Suárez 1965, 20). In fact, the most influential works were written by important politicians and others closely tied to political organizations.

Under the Chávez government, the incorporation and participation of popular sectors, which is the essence of ‘social-based democracy’, has been quantitatively and qualitatively different from socialist government and welfare-state strategies of the past. Venezuela's social-based democracy focuses on education, job skills, ideology, transformation of values and empowerment, achievements which Chavista leaders consider to be imperatives for socialist development. However, Chavista social programmes have been undermined by institutional weakness, are sometimes not cost-effective, and are politicised. Conflicting views among the Chavistas on the role of the state hinge on the issue of whether initiatives from above in favour of social-based democracy represent a viable strategy for far-reaching change. The Venezuelan government's changing priorities after 2007 have detracted from the primacy of social programmes.