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Although political violence has played a central part in the formation of nations, its historical constitution and its role in representing nations havereceived scant attention. All too frequently the explanation of violence is equated with the identification of its causes, its form is accounted for by its function, and its function is seen in instrumental terms; violence is reduced to a practical tool used by opposing social actors in pursuit of conflicting ends. Whether treated as a cause, function, or instrument, violence is generally assumed rather than examined in its concreteness. Little attention is paid to its specific manifestations, to the way its effects are inseparably related to the means through which it is exerted, and to the meanings that inform its deployment and interpretation. In contrast, typological approaches that postulate a correspondence between types of societies and forms of violence often recognize the opacity of violence yet lose sight of the historical depth and specificity of its manifestations.

Development policy is analyzed by liberal models in terms of bargaining transactions between interest-maximizing actors and by the dependency perspective in terms of the internalized requirements of worldwide capital accumulation. Both approaches assume the working of capitalist rationality in dependent nations. In contrast, a focus on productive relations, class alliances, and political coalitions reveals the constraints on developmental policies in nations built around the partial development of capitalist productive forces and occupying a subordinate role in the international division of labor. Analysis of the Venezuelan auto policy during the Pérez administration (1974–79) shows the relations constituting socially defined actors and the structures underlying the policy bargaining process. It posits that in Venezuela there is a growing disjuncture between the internationally conditioned requirements of capital accumulation and the locally based demands of social reproduction; that the common interest of state and bourgeoisie in maintaining the rentier basis of the economy shapes the direction and extent of industrial development; and that circulation of petrodollars has absorbed production as a phase of circulation. The struggle between state and transnational corporations over local engine manufacture, and the tension between import substitution and export promotion, concealed an underlying conflict between rent appropriation and capital accumulation.

Pieces for anthrohistory : a puzzle to be assembled together -- Transculturation and the politics of theory : countering the center, Cuban counterpoint -- Foreword to Close encounters of empire -- Perspectives on Tierney's Darkness in El Dorado -- The future in question : history and utopia in Latin America (1989-2010) -- Dismembering and remembering the nation : the semantics of political violence in Venezuela -- Transitions to transitions : democracy and nation in Latin America -- Venezuela's wounded bodies : nation and imagination during the 2002 coup -- Oilpacity : secrets of history in the coup against Hugo Chávez -- Crude matters : seizing the Venezuelan petro-state in times of Chávez -- Occidentalism -- Beyond occidentalism : toward nonimperial geohistorical categories -- Listening to the subaltern : the poetics of neocolonial states -- Smelling like a market -- Latin American postcolonial studies and global decolonization -- After empire : reflections on imperialism from the Aḿericas.

In The Fernando Coronil Reader Venezuelan anthropologist Fernando Coronil challenges us to rethink our approaches to key contemporary epistemological, political, and ethical questions. Consisting of work written between 1991 and 2011, this posthumously published collection includes Coronil's landmark essays "Beyond Occidentalism" and "The Future in Question" as well as two chapters from his unfinished book manuscript, "Crude Matters." Taken together, the essays highlight his deep concern with the Global South, Latin American state formation, theories of nature, empire, and postcolonialism, and anthrohistory as an intellectual and ethical approach. Presenting a cross section of Coronil's oeuvre, this volume cements his legacy as one of the most innovative critical social thinkers of his generation.