The Two Lefts: Chavez, Venezuela, and Contemporary Left-Wing Politics

This volume comprises a collection of ten essays, written between 2002 and 2004, by Teodoro Petkoff, who during the last four decades has been one of Venezuela’s most prominent politicians and political thinkers. He is still very active politically; for several months he was the main opposition candidate for his party, MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo), opposing Hugo Chavez in the run-up to Venezuela's general election, held in December 2006. Since 2000, he has been the editor of Tal Cual, one of the most widely read newspapers in Venezuela. First published in Spanish as Dos Izquierdas (Caracas: Alfadil, 2005), this book has been translated by Daniel Petkoff, and edited by Matthew Clark, with a view to introducing Petkoff’s comment and analysis to the English-speaking world, as none of his previous publications has been translated into English.