Oil has played a major role in Venezuela's economy since the first
gusher was discovered along Lake Maracaibo in 1922. As Miguel
Tinker Salas demonstrates, oil has also transformed the country's
social, cultural, and political landscapes. In "The Enduring
Legacy," Tinker Salas traces the history of the oil industry's rise
in Venezuela from the beginning of the twentieth century, paying
particular attention to the experiences and perceptions of industry
employees, both foreign and Venezuelan. He reveals how class
ambitions and corporate interests combined to reshape many
Venezuelans' ideas of citizenship. Middle-class Venezuelans
embraced the oil industry from the start, anticipating that it
would transform the country by introducing modern technology,
sparking economic development, and breaking the landed elites'
stranglehold. Eventually Venezuelan employees of the industry found
that their benefits, including relatively high salaries, fueled
loyalty to the oil companies. That loyalty sometimes trumped
allegiance to the nation-state.
North American and British petroleum companies, seeking to
maintain their stakes in Venezuela, promoted the idea that their
interests were synonymous with national development. They set up
oil camps--residential communities to house their workers--that
brought Venezuelan employees together with workers from the United
States and Britain, and eventually with Chinese, West Indian, and
Mexican migrants as well. Through the camps, the companies offered
not just housing but also schooling, leisure activities, and
acculturation into a structured, corporate way of life. Tinker
Salas contends that these practices shaped the heart and soul of
generations of Venezuelans whom the industry provided with access
to a middle-class lifestyle. His interest in how oil suffused the
consciousness of Venezuela is personal: Tinker Salas was born and
raised in one of its oil camps.
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