About This Book
In the essays published in this book, Enrique Bernardo Núñez, a writer, journalist, diplomatic essayist and true polemicist, returned to his fundamental themes about the founding and time of the nation, the links between its territory and population, with a clear anti-imperialist attitude, focusing on the problem of border limits and the asymmetric relationship with the European powers, in particular, with Great Britain.
In the first of these essays, "Orinoco", his analysis starts with the conquering ambitions of the English explorer and aristocrat Sir Walter Raleigh and the illusion of El Dorado. He then moves to "Three moments in the Guiana boundary dispute". In this long essay, he analyses the territorial dispossession that Venezuela suffered in the hands of the British Empire in its advance from the Eastern limits of the country which ended in the controversial international arbitration of 1899. In many ways, that international proceeding marked the sad participation of Venezuela as a witness and victim of the transition towards a new arrangement of world geopolitics.
It is a magnificent work by an essential author in Venezuelan cultural history. Núñez was the first chronicler of Caracas and was a member of the National Academy of History. With the resourceful use of his literary skills combined with an impeccable use of documents and historical materials, the author offers arguments and the necessary analysis to support and explain the background of the Venezuelan claims.
