“... and prices reacted accordingly (amid some agitation among traders regarding the ascension of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, and deteriorating US-Iraq relations). Rising oil prices in 2000, and the bursting of the Wall Street high-technology bubble, doubtless fed the perception that oil was scarce and economic recovery might be compromised. But rising ...”

“... of foodstuffs, it stood on the brink of a commodities boom, and also had the friendship of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, who financed his fellow left populists in Buenos Aires on generous terms. Whether or not class struggle is the motor of history, it rarely goes by that name. Coggan attempts to stay above the fray: ‘Economic history has been a war ...”