Bolivar

Robert Harvey’s biography follows Simón Bolívar from his privileged but unsettled childhood in Caracas through the experiences that turned him into a revolutionary. His education under Simón Rodríguez, early widowhood and travels in Europe exposed him to Enlightenment ideas and to Napoleon’s transformation from republican general into emperor. Returning to Venezuela, Bolívar entered the independence movement associated with Francisco de Miranda and learned through defeat, exile and civil war how difficult it would be to dismantle Spanish rule.

The central chapters reconstruct Bolívar’s campaigns along the Orinoco, across the flooded llanos and over the Andes into New Granada, followed by victory at Carabobo and the liberation of Ecuador and Peru. Harvey then examines the meeting with José de San Martín, the creation of Bolivia and Bolívar’s attempt to preserve Gran Colombia under a strong executive. Military achievement is set against political failure: regional rivalry, conflict with Francisco de Paula Santander and Bolívar’s increasing reliance on authoritarian power left his continental project fragmented before his death in 1830.