Describes the lives and deaths of the seven Liberators, the men who led Latin America's fight for independence and won it in a span of only twenty years after three centuries of Spanish domination.

This Oxford Handbook comprehensively examines the field of Latin American history.

Between 1808 and 1826, all of mainland Latin America became independent from Spain and Portugal, the colonial powers that had ruled the region for three centuries. Undesirable economic restrictions and a caste system that favored those born in Europe made the conditions for revolution ripe in the Americas. Combined with the actions of insightful leaders—most notably Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín—Latin American independence was all but guaranteed. This title explores the revolutions, their historical causes, and the new nations’ ensuing struggles, providing invaluable context for understanding the culture, politics, and social identity of the region today.

"Clearly laid out in this book is an insightful interpretation of a pivotal era in world history. The turbulent history of the independence movements is set forth with attention to key figures and their ideologies, regional differences, and the legacy of the wars of independence."--BOOK JACKET.

In 1808, world history took a decisive turn when Napoleon occupied Spain and Portugal, a European event that had lasting repercussions more than half the world away, sparking a series of revolutions throughout the Spanish and Portuguese empires of the New World. These wars for independence resulted eventually in the creation of nineteen independent Latin American republics.Here is an engagingly written, compact history of the Latin American wars of independence. Proceeding almost cinematically, scene by vivid scene, John Charles Chasteen introduces the reader to lead players, basic concepts, key events, and dominant trends, braided together in a single, taut narrative. He vividly depicts the individuals and events of those tumultuous years. Here are the famous leaders--Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin, and Bernardo O'Higgins, Father Hidalgo and Father Morelos, and many others. Here too are lesser known Americanos: patriot women such as Manuela Saenz, Leona Vicario, Mariquita Sanchez, Juana Azurduy, and Policarpa Salavarrieta, indigenous rebels such as Mateo Pumacahua, and African-descended generals such as Vicente Guerrero and Manuel Piar. Chasteen captures the gathering forces for independence, the clashes of troops and decisions of leaders, and the rich, elaborate tapestry of Latin American societies as they embraced nationhood. By the end of the period, the leaders of Latin American independence would embrace classical liberal principles--particularly popular sovereignty and self-determination--and permanently expanding the global reach of Western political values.Today, most of the world's oldest functioning republics are Latin American. And yet, Chasteen observes, many suffer from a troubled political legacy that dates back to their birth. In this book, he illuminates this legacy, even as he illustrates how the region's dramatic struggle for independence points unmistakably forward in world history.

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 book explores the surprising similarities in the political ideas of the American and Latin American independence movements.

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 book examines the Spanish response, military, economic and social, to the anti-imperial revolutions of Latin America in the early nineteenth century. History has for the most part concentrated on the heroic careers of the great liberators of America: but what did Spaniards themselves think of Simón Bolivar and his fellow revolutionaries? How did they view the events in America? What policies were adopted, what were their effects on Spanish trade and the merchants who conducted it, and what action did Spain take to meet American demands or to suppress them? It is with these and many related questions that this study is concerned. Analysing a broad spectrum of Spanish opinion which reflects the views of politicians, diplomats, merchants, journalists, the military and others, Professor Costeloe explains how Spaniards responded to revolution and how in retrospect, in the aftermath of defeat, they regarded the end of their nation's long role as a major imperial power.

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.