Manuel Antonio Caballero Agüero (5 December 1931 – 12 December 2010) was a notable Venezuelan

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

, journalist, best-selling author and professor of contemporary Venezuelan History at the

Central University of Venezuela The Central University of Venezuela (Spanish: ''Universidad Central de Venezuela''; UCV) is a public university of Venezuela located in Caracas. It is widely held to be the highest ranking institution in the country, and it also ranks 18th in L ...

Biography

Caballero was born in

Barquisimeto Barquisimeto (; guc, Watkisimeeta) is a city in Venezuela. It is the capital of the state of Lara and head of Iribarren Municipality. It is an important urban, industrial, commercial and transportation center of the country, recognized as the fou ...

, studied history at the

and obtained a PhD at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. With the publication of his PhD dissertation he became the first Venezuelan author to be published by

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. In 1989 he was invited to teach at Universitá degli Studi di Napoli in Italy. He received the National Award on Journalism (Premio Nacional de Periodismo) and the National History Award (Premio Nacional de Historia, 1994) and in 2005 he was elected as a member of the ''Academia Nacional de la Historia'' (or National Academy of History of Venezuela). He wrote regularly for Venezuelan newspapers '' El Nacional, El Diario de Caracas'' and most recently '' El Universal.'' Despite his past as a left-wing thinker and political activist, in particular against president

Rómulo Betancourt Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (22 February 1908 – 28 September 1981; ), known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was the president of Venezuela, serving from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Acción De ...

, in his latter years he became one of the most vocal and vehement critics of president

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...

and his administration. He revised his perspective on President Betancourt in a biography written in 2004. On 2010, he underwent a prostate surgery that triggered a series of infections unresponsive to antibiotics, further complicated by diabetes. He died on 12 December 2010.

Works

*La Pasión de Comprender: ensayos de historia (y de) política (1983) *EL Orgullo de Leer (1988) * Las Elecciones Presidenciales: ¿la última o la primera? (1989) * Gómez, El Tirano Liberal: vida y muerte del siglo XIX (1993) * De la "Pequeña Venecia" a la "Gran Venezuela": una historia de cinco siglos (1997) * Contra el golpe, la dictadura militar y la guerra civil (1998) *La Crisis de la Venezuela Contemporánea 1903–1992 (1998) * La gestación de Hugo Chávez: 40 años de luces y sombras en la democracia venezolana (2000) * Latin America and the Comintern, 1919–1943 (2002) * Rómulo Betancourt, Político de Nación (2004) * El Desorden de los Refugiados (2004) * Dramatis Personae: doce ensayos biográficos (2004) * ¿Por qué no soy bolivariano? (2006) * La Peste Militar (2007) * Contra la abolición de la historia (2008) * Polémicas y otras formas de escritura (2008) * No más de una cuartilla (2009) * Historia de los venezolanos en el siglo XX (2010)

External links

Selected Essays

Profile at the Academia Nacional de Historia

"El Poder Popular es una ficción" interview
by the newspaper El Universal
Interview to Manuel Caballero about his book "Historia de los venezolanos en el siglo XX" – Lo afirmativo venezolano
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caballero, Manuel 1931 births Alumni of University College London Writers from Caracas Venezuelan male writers 20th-century Venezuelan historians Central University of Venezuela alumni Central University of Venezuela faculty 2010 deaths 21st-century Venezuelan historians