Bolivar

April 18, 2011
The last of the truly great military commanders before the advent of modern, impersonal warfare, Simón Bolívar led his men through thousands of miles of nearly impassable terrain, undeterred by shattering defeats and unimaginable privations, to liberate six countries from the Spanish Empire. Harvey painstakingly recounts Bolívar's victory against seemingly impossible odds and his subsequent descent into the type of megalomaniacal tyranny against which he had fought. Harvey (Liberators), a former British MP and columnist for the Daily Telegraph, makes extensive use of primary sources to chronicle the trials of Bolívar's men, crafting a narrative that is granular in its focus on the war's day-by-day progress while remaining cognizant of the grand sweep of history. The book's single-minded attention to tactical matters and military maneuvers, however, is sometimes reminiscent of the box score of a baseball game, and often leaves the reader wanting more about the human culture of the region and the consequences of imperialism and conquest. It is a testament to Harvey's skill that his account of alliances and betrayals, deceptions and grisly executions, liberally interspersed with details of Bolívar's many love affairs, remains gripping and illuminates something of the leader's contradictory personality. 24 b&w illus.

April 1, 2011

The great liberator Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) receives a colorful treatment by an admiring British journalist.

Harvey (The Fall of Apartheid: The Inside Story from Smuts to Mbeki, 2002, etc.) sees in Bolívar's evolution the epitome of the Romantic hero. He was a spoiled son of Venezuela who seized sobering ideas from his enlightened tutor and from far-flung travels to Europe, and, after a terrible clash with adversity, he joined the rebel movement against the Spanish oppressors of his homeland. Harvey examines Bolívar's later greatness from his early revolutionary seeds. He was born to an independent-minded family from northern Spain that broke off from the Castilian state in the late 16th century to migrate, and Bolívar grew up within a charmed life in Caracas and demonstrated early on an ungovernable spirit. His formative experiences included being tutored by the unorthodox Simón Rodríguez, steeped in Rousseau's Emile, his ill-fated young marriage (his bride died after less than a year) and witnessing the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom Bolívar had worshipped before he proved to be a "hypocritical tyrant." Inculcated in the Spanish criollo system of feudalism, Bolívar had also soured on the oppressive Spanish reign that had denied his family a certificate of pure blood; he grew to abhor what he witnessed as the exploitation of Latin American resources and people "to satisfy the insatiable greed of Spain." Harvey ably weaves the context around Bolívar's daredevil vision to challenge the powerful Spanish empire built by central authority, the church and military. Later in life, Bolívar displayed the ruthlessness, daring and literary eloquence that would ultimately liberate millions of enslaved, illiterate South Americans and inspire a continent—as well as create a troubling legacy of authoritarianism that would wreak bloody havoc after him.

An energetic, satisfyingly florid narrative that captures the passion and frenzy in this extraordinary life.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from May 1, 2011
For more than two centuries, ardent and would-be Latin American revolutionaries, from Che Guevara to Hugo Chvez, have paid homage to Simn Bol-var, which they should, since six Latin American nationsBolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panamaowe their independence directly to his millitary campaigns. Harvey, a former editor of the Economist and member of the British Parliament, has written an often thrilling, inspiring, but ultimately sad chronicle of a man justly dubbed The Liberator. Bolivar was the scion of an aristocratic Venezuelan family who showed a restless, rebellious spirit in adolescence. Sent by relatives to Europe, he immersed himself in salon society and Enlightenment ideas. By the time he returned home, he was committed to emancipating Latin America from smothering Spanish control. This is an epic story of numerous military campaigns across a vast and unforgiving landscape of mountains and swamps. It is also a finely crafted character study of a man frustrated by his inability to transform his military triumphs into stable political institutions. This is a masterful biography, ideal for general readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)