Bolivar

February 18, 2013
The George Washington of South America cuts a dashing though dark-edged and ultimately tragic figure in this rousing biography. Peruvian journalist Arana (American Chica) chronicles Gen. Simón Bolívar’s struggle against the Spanish Empire in the 1810s and ’20s through several dizzying cycles of battlefield victory, triumphal procession, demoralizing reversal, and squalid exile, before he finally drove imperial forces out of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Her vivid portrait shows us a charismatic man of high ideals, fiery oratory, unflagging energy and resolve, bold strategies, and a romantic aura—“he rode, ragged and shirtless... his wild long hair riding the wind”—that women found irresistible. (His preeminent mistress was no slouch herself: she once took up a sword to protect him from assassins.) Behind the epic marches, picturesque battles, and swirling ballroom scenes, the author smartly fills in the troubled background of the revolution, which descended from Enlightenment principles into bloody civil and racial conflict and grisly massacres that Bolívar sometimes fomented; his tense rule over politically fractious republics also declined from a vision of freedom and unity to an unpopular authoritarianism. Arana’s dramatic narrative is appropriately grand and enthralling, if a tad breathless, and it makes Bolívar an apt embodiment of the ambitions and disappointments of the revolutionary age. 8 pages of color photos, 2 b&w maps. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

Starred review from March 1, 2013
Arana is an indefatigable researcher, a perceptive historian, and a luminous writer, as shown in her defining, exhilarating biography of the great South American liberator Simn Bol-var. A household name in the southern half of the Americas, Bol-var nevertheless is generally unknown to North Americans, beyond the simple, Oh, yeah, I've heard the name. The good of this meticulous new account of Bol-var's exciting, to say nothing of consequential, life and times is that such a robust, dynamic, and, more importantly, easily accessible narrative goes to great lengths to rectify the North American unfamiliarity with Bol-var. The liberation of the South American colonies from the rule of the mother country was an even more complex, fits-and-starts program than the severing of ties between Great Britain and its Atlantic-seaboard colonies, but Arana follows the war in all its steps forward and back, at the end of which one man would be credited for single-handedly conceiving, organizing, and leading the liberation of six nations. Her understanding of the man behind the fameand behind the hostility that enveloped him in his later yearsbrings this biography to the heights of the art and craft of life-writing. For more about the preparation of this book, see the adjacent Story behind the Story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2013
Inspired biography of the great Latin American revolutionary, with great depth given to his fulsome ideas. Like the recent biography by Englishman Robert Harvey, novelist and memoirist Arana's (Lima Nights, 2008, etc.) work is bold and positively starry-eyed about her subject. She plunges into the tumultuous life of the Great Liberator, from the moment he thundered into the capital of the Spanish viceroyalty, Santa Fe de Bogota, on August 10, 1819, at age 36 and at the height of his power, sure at last that his revolution "stood to inherit all the abandoned riches of a waning empire." Arana reconstructs the wildly erratic, early character development that led to Bolivar's apotheosis, a career forged by his own will and wrought by experience, from his aristocratic roots in Caracas through wide-ranging travels to Europe and America. From his mother's thwarted efforts to secure a title of nobility for her sons, Bolivar learned early on about the racial inflexibility of the Spanish overseers, cognizant that Latin America, with its rich ethnic layers, was unlike the makeup of European and American society and therefore was incompatible with their models of government. Bolivar would effectively build on important insurrections before him: by Indian leader Tupac Amaru II in Peru in 1781; by the famously egotistical Venezuelan rebel-in-exile Francisco de Miranda, from whom Bolivar learned the fatal consequences of indecision; and by Jose de San Martin in Argentina and Chile. Disgusted by the corruption and venality of the Spanish crown and feeling betrayed by North America's refusal to aid the Latin American revolutionaries, Bolivar embraced revolution wholeheartedly, declaring freedom for Spanish-American slaves, proclaiming war to the death and ruling by an authoritative style that won many detractors. Arana ably captures the brash brilliance of this revered and vilified leader.

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Starred review from April 1, 2013

The cliche goes that history is written by the winners; in the case of Simon Bolivar, a remarkable military leader who liberated six South American countries from Spanish rule, this is not the case. Bolivar's legacy has been tarnished by many right up to the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Arana (former editor in chief, Washington Post Book World; Lima Nights) presents a human story of a wealthy Creole who, inspired by Enlightenment ideas, sought to bring South Americans of all colors responsible and representative government. As Arana aptly points out, his vision of equality went much further than the ideals of George Washington. Today, Bolivar is viewed either as the archetype of the Latin American strongman or an impossibly faultless crusader of equality. In her work, Arana adeptly finds the statesman behind the images. Drawing on Bolivar's voluminous correspondence and political writings, she assembles a chronological narrative that does justice to both Bolivar's august achievements and his human imperfections. This well-rounded work reveals not just an accomplished military tactician but also an able statesman. VERDICT This vivid biography flows smoothly and makes an important contribution to Bolivarian studies. It should appeal to readers both lay and academic, the more so as this is the bicentennial year of Bolivar's first independence campaign. [See Prepub Alert, 10/28/12.]--Brian Renvall, Mesalands Community Coll., Tucumcari, NM

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