Bolivia is land-locked now. But it didn't start out that way. It used to have a port on the Pacific coast and coastline along with it. But that was territory that Chile had its eye on. The coast and land further to the east were rich with sodium nitrate – much prized for its use in weapons production and agriculture.

Beginning in 1879, the two countries fought a five-year-long war. Chile prevailed and Bolivia ended up losing its coast, its port, its nitrate, and a lot of its economic power. It didn't take long for Bolivia's other not-so-neighbourly neighbours to chip away at its borders - in the process enlarging Brazil, Peru and Argentina.

In the 1930s, Paraguay fought a war with Bolivia over oil. Bolivia lost more of its territory, but gained a populist movement that was to remain a force in the country to the present day. The MNR (Nationalist Revolutionary Movement) was backed by a group of young military reformers and first came to power through a 1943 coup.

Subsequent decades of Bolivian politics saw a dizzying series of coups, revolts and counter-revolts. In 1962, the MNR lost power to a succession of right-wing military regimes that included the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer Suarez from 1971 to 1978.

In 1982, democratic civilian rule resumed with the election of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). But the early 1980s also saw inflation soar; by 1985, hyperinflation was running at more than 35,000 per cent annually. The resulting economic crisis strangled the country and pitted labour unions, the private sector and the government against each other.

The more conservative MNR won the 1985 election, formed a coalition and brought in severe austerity measures. The new economic policies quickly brought inflation levels down. But the underground economy flourished – especially the cocaine industry. The U.S. dollars it brought into the country were a major contributor to the economy. Bolivia's perceived lacklustre attempts to crack down on the drug trade strained relations with the United States.

In the late 1990s, the country was hit by fallout from the Brazilian and Asian financial crises. Unemployment topped 20 per cent as a deep recession took hold.

Protesters call for the nationalization of Bolivia's huge energy reserves. (AP file photo)

The opposition was a diverse coalition – indigenous peasants, leftist students, farmers and labour activists – who said Mesa was not doing enough to prevent the country's considerable oil and gas wealth from leaving the country. In a country as desperately poor as Bolivia, the call to nationalize what is seen as the biggest source of wealth drew much support from the large portion of the population that is poor.

It is Bolivia's poverty that remains the defining source of the country's political unrest and its deep divisions. Many of its citizens earn less than $1 a day. And after decades of economic hardship and little change in their position at the bottom, patience is in very short supply.