An authoritative portrait of the Latin-American warrior-statesman examines his life against a backdrop of the tensions of nineteenth-century South America, covering his achievements as a strategist, abolitionist, and diplomat.

This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.

Chronicles the life of Simón Bolívar, exploring his political career, leadership dynamics, rule over the people of Spanish America, and impact on world history.

This title shows us how and why Simón Bolívar is still a major icon in Latin American culture. Cinema, politics, painting, literature, religion, and opera are all touched and marked by 'El Libertador' who is still very much an active force in Latin America. In this volume, an array of international and interdisciplinary scholars shows the ways Bolívar has appeared over the last two centuries in painting, fiction, poetry, music, film, festival, dance, city planning, and even reliquary adoration.

Provides a through background for Bolívar's "contradictory" life, from his birth into colonial aristocracy to his leadership of a revolution to his tactical alliance with the Roman Catholic Church; addresses many of the principles for which Bolívar fought, such as abolition of slavery and legal equality for all races and social classes; reviews his efforts to obtain a British protectorate over his alliance; places events in the context of the Enlightenment "world," showing the norms and conditions that spurred change; and details the influence Bolívar had on radical movements and events during the course of the revolutions in Latin America and documents the challenges he faced in leading a revolution.

A biography of the South American general and revolutionary who helped liberate Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela from the domination of Spain in the early nineteenth century..

A biography of "El Libertador," whose victories over the Spaniards won independence for Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

The “impeccably researched, uncommonly honest, and . . . very well written” biography of the nineteenth century Venezuelan military and political leader (Alvaro Vargas Llosa, New Republic). Simón Bolívar was a revolutionary who freed six South American countries from Spanish Imperial rule, an intellectual who argued the principles of national liberation, and a statesman who led the governments of Venezuela, Gran Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru. His life, passions, and battles were woven into Spanish American culture almost as soon as they happened. In the first major English-language biography of “The Liberator” in half a century, John Lynch draws on extensive research to understand Bolívar’s life in the context of his own society and times, and to explore his remarkable and enduring legacy. Simón Bolívar illuminates the man’s inner world, the dynamics of his leadership, his power to command, and his modes of ruling the diverse peoples of Spanish America. The key to his greatness, Lynch concludes, was his ability to inspire people to follow him beyond their immediate interests, in some cases through years of unremitting struggle. Encompassing Bolívar’s entire life and his many accomplishments, this is the definitive account of a towering figure in the history of the Western hemisphere. “[A] masterly new biography.” —Noam Lupu, San Francisco Chronicle

This compelling biography offers a unique perspective on the life and career of one of Latin America's most famous—and most adulated—historical figures. Departing from the conventional, narrow treatment of Bolívar's role in the Spanish-American wars of independence (1810–1825), leading historian Lester D. Langley frames this remarkable figure as the quintessential Venezuelan rebel, who by circumstance and sheer will rose to be the continent's most noted revolutionary and liberator. In the process, he became both a unifying and a divisive presence whose symbolic influence remains powerful even today. Twice Bolívar gained power, twice he confronted a formidable counterrevolution, twice he was compelled to flee. His ultimate tactic of using slave and mixed-race troops aroused both the admiration and fear of U.S. leaders and became a topic of heated discussion in the critical debates of 1817 and 1818 over U.S. policy toward the Spanish-American wars as well as the arguments over the admission of Missouri as a state in 1820–1821 and the U.S. decision to participate in the ill-fated Congress of Panama. Although he earned the sobriquet of the "George Washington" of South America, Bolívar in victory became more conservative and critical of the democratic tide of the era. Unlike Washington, Bolívar was forced into exile, the victim of his own ambitions and the fears of others. In his tragic end, he symbolized the glorious warrior so consumed by his own ambition and hatreds that he was destroyed. In death, he became a cult figure whose life and meaning casts a long shadow over modern Venezuelan history. As the author convincingly explains, he remains the most relevant figure of the revolutionary age in the Americas.

General Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), called El Liberator, and sometimes the "George Washington" of Latin America, was the leading hero of the Latin American independence movement. His victories over Spain won independence for Bolivia, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Bolívar became Columbia's first president in 1819. In 1822, he became dictator of Peru. Upper Peru became a separate state, which was named Bolivia in Bolívar's honor, in 1825. The constitution, which he drew up for Bolivia, is one of his most important political pronouncements. Today he is remembered throughout South America, and in Venezuela and Bolivia his birthday is a national holiday. Although Bolívar never prepared a systematic treatise, his essays, proclamations, and letters constitute some of the most eloquent writing not of the independence period alone, but of any period in Latin American history. His analysis of the region's fundamental problems, ideas on political organization and proposals for Latin American integration are relevant and widely read today, even among Latin Americans of all countries and of all political persuasions. The "Cartagena Letter," the "Jamaica Letter," and the "Angostura Address," are widely cited and reprinted.