Family lore has it that one day, while at his home in Camurana, Caracas, he looked up, saw an aircraft passing overhead, and exclaimed: "That should be forbidden—flying over people's homes." Others say his concept of sovereignty was so expansive that it encompassed not only the subsoil and the resources found within it but also the surface and the space beyond the planet. He assembled a rudimentary power plant to light the home he had built with his own hands—an act that was, in essence, a protest against the city's electric utility monopoly. A vegetarian, he grew his own food and eschewed air conditioning; he drove only when absolutely necessary, preferring to walk most of the time. He was a man devoted to his family and his home. On the family lands in Turgua, rather than fighting off squatters and encroachers, he engaged them in dialogue and even helped them secure amenities like a school. He carried a stick on his long walks—not to kill snakes, should he encounte...