Beauty, Virtue, Power, and Success in Venezuela 1850–2015

There are few studies that cover the lives, texts and contexts of Venezuelan women with the same clarity and erudition. Nichols shows the possibility of applying intersectionality as a tool of analysis to reflect on the construction of identity and capture the complexity of power relations, which is reflected in national public life around the female body. Beauty, Virtue, Power and Success in Venezuela 1850-2015 is an indispensable work for the investigation of beauty as a social phenomenon capable of promoting radical changes in the identity profile of a national community. [Translated from original Spanish] * Hispania *
Beauty, Virtue, Power, and Success in Venezuela 1850–2015 closely follows the omnipresent world of beauty in Venezuela from canonical fiction to contemporary Miss Venezuela pageant queens. Nichols' research is extensive and invites readers to explore the grip of beauty and power in Venezuela. This book is needed in the field of Venezuelan literary, film, and cultural studies and will continue to invite other readings of both the body and the body of work that Nichols carefully curated in this book. -- Michelle Farrell, Fairfield University
Venezuela is world renowned for producing numerous winners of international beauty pageants. Scholars attribute this to a philosophy of life in Venezuela that embodies social-cultural components of race, class, youth, morality, and national identity. Supported by social science research and literature from various time periods, Nichols traces the origins and development of Venezuela’s evolving fixation with feminine beauty. Nichols successfully demonstrates that this cult of beauty is more than skin deep; it is embedded in the ethos of Venezuelan daily life and has remained relatively unchanged for over a hundred and fifty years. -- Roberto Ibarra, University of New Mexico
Elizabeth Gackstetter Nichols is a true detective, combining literary and cultural analysis to get to the bottom of how and why feminine beauty became the accomplice of Venezuelan nationalism. Her selection of cases is smart, and her longitudinal approach allows us to see the continuity of messages about beauty, race, and class from the days of Simón Bolívar to today’s surgically enhanced beauty queen dynasty. If you’re curious about how beauty operates and why Venezuela rules the beauty world, the answers are in this book. -- Erynn Masi de Casanova, University of Cincinnati, author of Making Up the Difference: Women, Beauty, and Direct Selling on Ecuador