What struck me the most about Bolivar was his adamancy. And nowhere is this more better reflected than when Bolivar was taken to meet the Pope by a contemporary. The latter insisted he kiss the Pope's sandals for he was the primary representative of God on Earth post-Christ. Bolivar swiftly retorted that if this indeed was the case then why did the rock of Christ have Christ's sacrosanct cross on his sandals? This hallmarked Bolivar's tendency to overcome all odds. Uncompromising and just, Simon Bolivar's adamancy witnessed him precipitate revolution after revolution in the Americas; to free his people and ensure their progress.

Arana's narrative was comprehensive as well as flowing. She avoids browbeat jargon and crafts an elegant account of a man who is deified in each and every South American nation. And indeed, what a man! The pinnacle of all revolutionary zeal. Bolivar, a handful of revolutionaries who precipitated a tectonic shift in human history. Bolivar, the son of the conquered who rose to become conqueror. Bolivar, we have still not heard the last of him. ( )

If, like me, you don't know too much about Simón Bolívar even though the guy has entire countries and political movements and so on named after him, then this biography is a good place to start. It ably covers all the standard origins activities who he banged legacy stuff, although I found the international context a little lacking, in that I would have appreciated a little more quantification of the comparison between Bolívar's liberation efforts and someone like George Washington's, or even Napoleon's. Arana is at pains to mention that Bolívar's job was, on paper, even more difficult than Washington's, but you don't feel like you really grasp why South American society was so much more difficult to unify than North America's was, except at the most basic level, because the main character of this book is Bolívar, and the continent is merely a background for him to run around on.

Speaking of international comparisons, it's tempting to play armchair quarterback since Bolívar's Gran Colombia fell apart instantly whereas Washington's United States did not. While granting that the geographically vaster, more racially and economically mixed lands of South America would be way tougher for any one to liberate and administrate (and keeping in mind that those two skills are very rarely combined in one person anyway), it seems like Bolívar would have benefited from following a few management/leadership guidelines:
- Try to keep your womanizing separate from your revolutionizing. There's one part where Bolívar holds up an entire invasion fleet that's halfway to its goal for three days so that he can retrieve his mistress Pepita from her island and then sleep with her while everyone sits around and twiddles their thumbs. Later in the book his "permanent mistress" Manuela becomes a politically divisive figure in classic court-politics style. I get that being the father of a nation (or six) has its privileges, but try to keep your eye on the prize.
- Don't retain and promote provably disloyal subordinates. The second half of the book, and even to some extent the first half as well, is an endless string of betrayals, backstabbings, and double crosses, to the point where it seems like the only one who didn't turn against Bolívar is his manservant. I don't know if the historical record is just spotty, or if Arana is garbling everyone's motives, or what, but it certainly seems like Bolívar could have avoided a lot of heartache by refusing to hand out amnesties like candy and just straight up exiling/executing high-level malcontents. I get that forgiveness is a good way to retain support from crucial allies, but there's got to be a point where you realize that you're just setting yourself up for yet another rebellion/coup/assassination attempt a year down the line.
- To that end, be vigilant about your underlings' independent means of support. One of the interesting things that Cyrus the Great did in Persia, with a similarly large and ethnically varied empire, was to post administrators in different parts of the empire than they were from, so that they couldn't build their own power bases. Mixing the various elites of Peru, New Granada, Venezuela, etc., might have led to a greater feeling of continental solidarity. Of course the US also had its own problems with federalism that wouldn't get even partially resolved until the Civil War, but it's important to do what you can to make your administrators feel like your empire is better to administrate than to liquidate.
- Don't waste too much time on paperwork. After about the third or fourth one, you get the impression that Bolívar was addicted to constitutional conventions. While legal institutions are very important (as he himself predicted, Napoleon's civil code has outlasted his empire by centuries), getting bogged down in minutiae can be lethal, especially when there are more pressing matters to attend to, like enemy armies or the collapsing economy. Additionally, Bolívar's attempt to include a President-for-life in his constitution is so stupid it beggars belief - try not to throw out your single selling point over the monarchy you just overthrew!

Still, for all his faults, Bolívar comes across as an incredible figure, and it's hard to make the argument that anyone else could have achieved any more than he did. Now that UNASUR is slowly becoming a reality, he's one of those rare figures who you can truly say was ahead of his time. ( )

Very informative, thrilling, and romantically told. I had no concept at all of what a huge mess South America faced - I knew Spain sent some conquistadors, i knew about Incas, then my knowledge jumped several hundred years to the cold war. This book blew my mind. The Haiti connection, all the classic/roman influences, the Liberator's wife? What a tale. I closed this book feeling amazed. Great intro for beginners to the topic. ( )

Bolivar is sometimes referred to as the Washington of Latin America so I think it behooves Americans to read this book and decide if the label fits. I don't think it does. This biography tells a story with lots of warts on it. However, the account I think is balanced and fair; Bolivar brought independence to all of Spanish-speaking South America but the cone of the continent. ( )

48. Bolívar : American liberator by Marie Arana
published: 2014
format: 468 page hardcover (603 with notes in bibliography)
acquired: Library
read: Aug 25 - Sep 13
rating: 4

This is a terrific book and a larger than life real-life story, but, goodness, there is so much to tell, I don't know where to begin, or how to sum up. I can't explain Bolivar in a simple straight way without wandering off on convoluted discursive paths in an effort to clarify.

Simón Bolívar was a wealthy and unruly orphan from Caracas who was educated by a random but fascinating assortment of characters, was connected to the highest society, would play badminton with the crown prince of Spain, and later, in Parisian and Italian high society meet many of the leading figures of the day, including Alexander Von Humbolt (who "judged him a puerile man").

Simón Bolívar was a failure, part 1, 2 & 3. His most impressive role in the First Republic of Venezuela was to be exiled instead of executed. The Admirable Campaign that initially made him famous and led to him being named the Liberator and that mostly took place in Colombia, created the Second Republic of Venezuela. This one was wiped out by the Legions of Hell (that's their actual name), a marauding army of ex-slaves loyal to Spain that would rape and pillage through the second republic, massacring a large portion of revolutionary supporters. Bolivar wound up in Jamaica and Haiti. Having finally figured out that he needed to manage the slave revolt if he were to get free of Spain, he invaded again, freed the slaves, promised to undo the racial favoritism and saw his invasion quickly wiped out again. He was chased out by his own revolutionary allies and almost gutted by an ally who was so upset he swung a sword a him to kill (and would later be a loyal supporter of Bolívar).

Simón Bolívar was in a weird place. Spain had done some strange stuff to keep the masses in check in New Spain. The European descendants, Creoles, like Bolívar, were divided from the natives, and from the slaves and a large population of mixed race in what came to be tension driven freezing-in-place of the system. It was these kind of tensions that led to the Legions of Hell to fight against the Creole rebellion, and that made these new rebellious colonies impossible to manage, leading to a variety of regional warlords who no one actually liked. No one liked anyone else, except somehow everyone like the Liberator, Bolívar. So he became to only possible leader. This is just the beginning.

Simón Bolívar was special. It's only at this point that we say he was what the myths say - energetic, elegant, educated, graceful, charming, tougher than everyone else, deeply dedicated to his cause with full integrity, insightful, and finally savvy enough to be dangerous.

Simón Bolívar was the revolution. From this point Bolívar made it happen almost single-handed. His energy was the motor of the revolution, his integrity disarmed, his charm brought devout enemies to join him, his physical prowess won over his army (which included large contingents of British veterans out of work after Waterloo), his personality won over the most intransigent resistance to cooperation, his strategies, many psychological, would set the victories in place. Finally, his statesmanship won over whatever was left.

Simón Bolívar was a butcher. Outside the 800 Spanish prisoners he ordered beheaded over a few days because of rumors of a prison revolt, he lost several armies, saw populations of entire regions drop by 1/3, economies completely break down.

Simón Bolívar was a notorious womanizer. Briefly married, he met widowhood by finding prominent lovers in France, notably the married Fanny du Villars. He took with Josefina "Pepita" Machado almost as a war prize, and once held an entire invasion fleet on hold in port for several days until she could join him. She disappeared somewhere in the Venezuelan wilderness, on the way to meet him. And, most famously, Manuela Sáenz, the married Peruvian who became his final mistress, saving his life during an assassination attempt.

Simón Bolívar was a failure, part 4. He would momentarily reach an amazing high tide where he had freed future Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia from Spain, had charmed his rival liberator, San Martín, Liberator of Argentina, out of the picture, was writing his own constitutions and had in a place a very talented successor, Antonio José de Sucre. Alas, his constitution with its life-time president left about everyone horrified, including Henry Clay, his most devout supporter in the unsupportive United States and Lafayette, one his most valued European supporters. Regional animosities, an assassination attempt and tuberculosis finally led him to resign all powers and try to flee his own country, shortly after saying in an important speech, "I am ashamed to admit it, but independence is the only thing we have won, at the cost of everything else." He would die several month after giving up the presidency. He was nearly alone, poor, out of power, unwanted, and finally broken by the news of the assassination of Sucre.

Simón Bolívar is a legend. Quoting Arana, "But, for all his flaws, there was never any doubt about his power to convince, his splendid rhetoric, his impulse to generosity, his deeply held principles of liberty and justice." and later, "The intervening century had made Bolívar a good Catholic, a moral exemplar, an unwavering democrat—none of which he had been during his life."

And, worst of all, Simón Bolívar has become a rallying cry of populist autocrats the like of Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian Revolution: "Bolívar purported to hate dictatorships—he claimed he had taken them on only for limited periods and as necessary expedients—but there is little doubt that he created the mythic creature that the Latin American dictator became."

What an insane life.

I picked this up because I had just read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel [The General in His Labyrinth], based on Bolivar's last several months of life, living on little money, very ill and essentially rejected by his continent.

2018
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