Simon Bolivar: A Life

We’ll written, very informative, a true account of bolívar, the independence of new Granada and the chaos and headache Bolivar had to deal with in order to free its people!!!

I am a novice regarding South American history, though Simon Bolivar has always interested me. A trip to Ecuador, where I saw one of the Liberator's swords in Quito, further spurred my curiosity about him. For those who don't know, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) was the George Washington of South America, a general who liberated Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Ecuador from Spanish rule. The country of Bolivia, which became a test case in the 1820s for Bolivar's constitutional ideas, is named after him.Unfortunately, books about the general (and later president) are hard to find in the States. The most popular is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "The General in His Labyrinth," which explored Bolivar's last, frustrated days. In the novel, "El Liberator" is succumbing to consumption and curses the Revolution he had unleashed. No English biography of Bolivar has been written in 50 years. To fill the gap in Bolivar historiography, John Lynch, an Emeritus professor of Latin American history at University of London, has produced a solid work of scholarship. His likely audience for this book would be graduate students about to study for their comprehensive exams or people who are somewhat familiar with Bolivar's accomplishments.Lynch's book is informative, but isn't as easy to read as some biographies are, such as David McCullough's "John Adams." "Simon Bolivar: A Life" doesn't begin with Bolivar's birth, but an earthquake that rocked Venezuela (place of SB's birth) in 1812. The earthquake was seen by some royalist clergymen as divine punishment for Venezuelans revolting against the Spanish. Lynch's book is relatively brief (300 pages), but dense. One will not find short, reader-friendly paragraphs in these pages. The author does not write for a popular audience, but a learned one. We are given much information, not just about Bolivar's life, but the social, political, and economic aspects of the Revolutionary period in South America (from the 1810s to the 1820s).Lynch's work will help students of Latin America who must answer such questions as, "how revolutionary was the Revolution? Could Bolivar's model of government have worked?" To some extent, Bolivar's only real accomplishment was throwing off Spanish rule. Slaves in the liberated countries were not freed in the general's lifetime, and the plight of the Indians did not improve very much after the Spanish were defeated. Warlords quickly filled the political vacuum left by the royalist government. Bolivar was a creature of the Enlightenment, but he did not believe that South America could ape the American or French Revolutions. The general sought to apply revolutionary ideas in a South American context: he knew monarchy was disliked, but also that democracy couldn't work. South America's problem was that it was too democratic, too chaotic. When the Spanish left, warlords sought to control local communities at the expense of Bolivar's desire to have a centralized republic. To use an analogy from early U.S. history, Bolivar was more Hamiltonian than Jeffersonian, more a Federalist than a Republican. He knew that the areas his Colombian army did not control were a political free-for-all.Added to the problem of home rule in South America were racial divisions between the ruling "white" elites (of which Bolivar was one), mixed-race Americans, black slaves, and Indians (Lynch, writing from less politically correct England, never uses the term Native American). Bolivar, who hated racism, struggled with these racial and political divisions. Victory was relatively easy; the peace was what was hard. Bolivar unleashed liberation on a land that was not ready for republicanism. His political dream was a "Gran Colombia" with a strong leader, something along the lines of the British constitutional monarchy (sans the king). But the people didn't want it. As soon as the Spanish were kicked out, the liberated countries wanted to go their own way. Was Bolivar right about the need for a strong, single leader ruling the liberated countries? Or does it even matter, because his centralized republic could never have worked? Such are questions for debate.In helping answer these historical questions, Lynch's organization of facts and subjects is impeccable. If the book has a flaw, it is that it reads at times more like a history of the Revolutionary period than a biography. As informative as it is, I still didn't quite feel that I had learned enough about Bolivar the man. Overall, Lynch's writing perhaps could use more dashes of romanticism. Still, it is a very good book. As a final note: those who don't know Spanish might want to keep a Spanish dictionary handy. Some words aren't explained or can't be figured out from their context.

For anything anyone has ever wanted to know about the Liberator, here it is..truly what the English-speaking world has waited for. The Liberator with all his mastery and faults presented in hard-copy, whose feats rivaled that of Alexander the Great and whose faults are greater than our accomplishments. He was unlucky enough to inherit South American Independence and charged the harder task of handing freedom to the population out of a Dostoyevsky novel. Lynch explains why the dreamer who wished to unite a continent failed to do so. Here is the tragic true tale of someone who inspired by Rousseu's noble savage believed that a population could truly be democratic and found that democracy cannot be for every one and that a foreign military power cannot a build a nation. The America Washington inherited, was the misfortune Bolivar inherited. He freed/conquered more land and people than Washington, Jackson, Scott, Lee and Napolean combined. He was the greatest American General the West ever produced and he lies forgotten as 3rd World History, and is suddenly slightly resurrected by John Lynch. Lynch proves one cannot study any revolution until you study Bolivar. He believed in a people that did not believe in itself. Half a century before the United States challenged itself with abolition, and 150 years before Great Britain accepted racist Apartheid as immoral, he politically challenged a continent to accept that slavery and racism was not only uneconomic, but an incompatible hypocrisy in a democratic society. Almost 200 years before the American Civil Rights Movement granted non-whites economic and political equality, he dragged non-whites out of poverty and into viable recognition in their societies, granting them opportunities that the United States would only do with much more bloodshed 2 centuries later. In short, Superbly Written.

Most of the reviews of this book will try to explain the history of Simon Bolivar. I wish to give you my opinion of the book. I had extreme difficulty putting it down. Lynch uses first hand accounts describing Bolivar, and you really get to know him on a personal level. Many of the other charictures come to life as well. The story is accurate and well written. Though I am just a dumb constuction worker with only a high school education, I have learned much from this book, and would even say that I have a better understanding of politics now. I was really pulled into Bolivar's life, and shed a few tears during the course of reading this book. And I'm a tough guy. My imagination has been sparked and I feel inspired. Thank you Mr. Lynch for breaking through the myth and giving us the real Bolivar. I now proclaim myself a fan of Simon Bolivar, and wish to visit his homeland in the near future. Viva el Libertador!

Since the product is a book I cooked it and had it for dinner.

anche se il libro è stato spedito dall'Inghilterra è arrivato in perfette condizioni. il ritardo di un giorno sulla presunta data di consegna è stato segnalato cortesemente tramite email.

Amazing!!!

un homme formidable.

Being venezuelan Bolivar is very much a household name and his history is well known to most of us. Lynch's biography is exceedingly well written and gripping. Very well researched too. I found it slightly too condensed and had to go back a few times and weed out a few facts again and again as I am sure the author wanted to include as much information as possible. I enjoyed not just going over all the biographical notes but also Lynch's analysis and comments on the ongoing politics of the time. I will get san Martin's biography and read it soon and I believe this will offer me a better appraisal of the author's prowess and knowledge of Spanish America history as San Martin is a lesser known historical character to those of us from the north of South America