ESBOZO CRONOLÓGICO COMENTADO PARA UNA HISTORIA SOCIAL DE LA INGENIERÍA EN VENEZUELA.

In the absence of studies on the social evolution of engineering in Venezuela from its origins to the present day, we present an outline of this historical process as a first step towards a study of wider dimensions. This initial publication has meant: the search for and selection of source material; ordering the data collected; and the creation of a preliminary model. This model not only provides a framework for a coherent overvicw of engineering in Venezuela as history, but also adds analytical and interpretative comments. The outline is divided into four phases: I. Engineering in the pre-petroleum era: A long and languid prologue (from the mid-eighteenth century to the second decade of the twentieth); II. Engineering and pre-democratic modernization: The petroleum awakening (1919 - 1958); III. Engineering and democratic modernization: Growth without development (1958 - 1983); and IV. Engineering artd the crisis of the petroleum-dependence model (1983 to the present). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]