Confidante of 'Tyrants'

When US lawyer Eva Golinger first spent some time in Venezuela uncovering her ancestral roots, she little realized how the country was going to change her life. Within a few years she had become an enthusiast for the Bolivarian Revolution and a close confidante of its charismatic leader, Hugo Chávez. She achieved worldwide notoriety by exposing and condemning US intervention in Venezuela and ended up travelling with Chávez all over the world, spending time with many other controversial leaders. In this frank and disarming memoir, she tells the full story of her time in Chávez's inner circle and reflects on what she has learned about revolutionary politics, about the dangers of authoritarian populism – and about herself. Confidante of Tyrants is told from a very personal, intimate, insider perspective of what it's like to be an American woman who was drawn to a movement pledging to fight for social justice with a very charismatic leader. Eva was behind the scenes of global power. She wandered the halls of presidential palaces, rubbed elbows with controversial world leaders, and was courted by declared enemies of her own country. She would come to know and even befriend some of these men, who so many in the world saw as tyrants. She saw them unveiled and had privileged access to Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, Bashar al Assad, Muammar Gaddafi, Julian Assange and other vilified strongmen and U.S. enemies. She was a witness to their capacity to garner the attention and support of millions, and saw how they used it to create and expand their power.