Victor Paz Estenssoro (born 1907) was a reformer, political thinker, and president of Bolivia. He instituted a series of widespread reforms that revolutionized Bolivian society.

Victor Paz was born to a middle-class family of mixed Spanish and Indian blood in the small and isolated northeast town of Tarija in 1907. He received his education at the University Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz and later studied economics in Germany. Paz worked in the government as a senior finance official from 1932 to 1933. During the Chaco War with Paraguay (1932-1935), he fought in the infantry, rose to the rank of captain, and was decorated for heroism.

After the war Paz filled a succession of government posts that brought him increasingly into the world of Bolivian politics. He became the deputy for his home in Tarija from 1938 to 1939. He taught economic history at La Paz University from 1939 to 1941. In 1940 he...