Book Description
Simón Bolívar was a revolutionary who freed six countries, an intellectual who argued the principles of national liberation, and a general who fought a cruel colonial war. His life, passions, battles, and great victories became embedded in Spanish American culture almost as soon as they happened. This is the first major English-language biography of “The Liberator” in half a century. John Lynch draws on extensive research on the man and his era to tell Bolívar’s story, to understand his life in the context of his own society and times, and to explore his remarkable and enduring legacy.
The book illuminates the inner world of Bolívar, the dynamics of his leadership, his power to command, and his modes of ruling the diverse peoples of Spanish America. The key to his greatness, Lynch concludes, was supreme will power and an ability to inspire people to follow him beyond their immediate interests, in some cases through years of unremitting struggle. Encompassing Bolívar’s entire life and his many accomplishments, this is the definitive account of a towering figure in the history of the Western hemisphere.
Customer Reviews:
Simon Bolivar(Simon Bolivar); A Life.......2007-09-15
I am a Japanese writer and a English-Japanese translator. I was reading
J.J. Rousseau in 1970s in Tokyo University. I read then Peter Gay's " The Enlightennent" series, and afterwards D.B.Davis's trology of American
History. In my thought, there is always common standerds of humanity. What
are thoses? Which are those? Can the language system of Human rights and
Discriminations recover the Humanity as a whole?
I am in a deep sorrow now. You must not fight in other countries.
"The fact is there are fewer and fewer good books." Simon Bolivar.......2007-05-28
It is applaudable that Lynch has written the first major English biography of Bolivar in five decades, and it is evident that Lynch knows, and greatly admires, Simon Bolivar. Lynch's extensive research into the life of Latin America's greatest Liberator provides a wealth of information that one is hard pressed to find anywhere else.
However, unlike Gabriel Garcia Marquez's, "The General in His Labyrinth," John Lynch writes a biography that is stilted and reads like a textbook: names, dates, places, events, etc. Never does Lynch help you understand the power of Bolivar's dynamic and engaging personality. Unlike Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose writing breaths life into the dead hero, Lynch preforms an post-mortem examination, identifying part and problems but never resurrecting the great man.
All students of South America should read John Lynch's biography, but also, follow up this textbook with the masterful "The General in His Labyrinth". Conditionally Recommended.
Opinion on John Lynch's Simon Bolivar.......2007-05-12
A thorough, scholarly review of the life of Bolivar. A little detailed for the light reader, but it is doubtful that much is missing from the story of the life of this patriot.
A great addition to the literature of south American history.......2007-02-19
John Lynch does another excellent job of preparing a biography on a Latin American dictator. Simon Bolivar's life was a contradiction from his rise to power as the liberator of Latin America to his downfall as a dictator. Bolivar would free four countries during his rise to power, have a nation named after him and introduce liberalism to an entire continent. Unfortunately in the process his jealously and paranoia would create a dictatorship that would rival any in Latin America. His cult of personality was very strong and he exercised supreme power. While not always the greatest general he had a George Washington like quality for wining at the key moments and always presenting the best face on his defeats. Bolivars life is broken into three stages by Lynch Revolution, Independence and nation building. Throughout each of these phases we see a different Bolivar. It is not a continuous strand of evolution but a radical change in each. I think Lynch makes a case although he does not specifically state it that after nation building Bolivar ends his life disgraced and out of power with people hunting him for the nations he tried to build.
Best English-language biography of Bolivar .......2007-01-03
This new biography of Simon Bolivar, by John Lynch one of the best historians of Latin America's independence, is excellent.
In my opinion it is the best English-language biography of Bolivar ever published, and one of the best (if not the best) in any language.
Although Lynch clearly sympathizes with Bolivar, his take on the subject is very balanced. It provides an excellent background on the economic and social conditions of the period. It also provides new insights on Bolivar using British archives.
If you want to learn about Bolivar this is the place to start. It will give you a complex view of a historical character that has been caricaturized and idolized by opportunistic politicians since his death.
Book Description
General Simon Bolivar, “the Liberator” of five South American countries, takes a last melancholy journey down the Magdalena River, revisiting cities along its shores, and reliving the triumphs, passions, and betrayals of his life. Infinitely charming, prodigiously successful in love, war and politics, he still dances with such enthusiasm and skill that his witnesses cannot believe he is ill. Aflame with memories of the power that he commanded and the dream of continental unity that eluded him, he is a moving exemplar of how much can be won—and lost—in a life.
Customer Reviews:
Slow but rewarding read.......2006-10-20
Márquez moves slowly through the final chapter in the saga of a great man and historical figure. Sometimes frustratingly so. But I think this may be intentional on the author's part. After all, Bolívar is renowned throughout Latin America for his tireless efforts to free the wayward continent and, when he had accomplished that, to prevent it from falling to shambles. The slow pace of the book reveals Bolívar as the tired soul he had become after so much fighting, so much toil that suddenly seemed to count for nothing. It is not a book about battles for independence or monetary gain; instead it focuses on the constant battle against death and despair.
Most enjoyable of all in the book are the small gems of prescience on the part of Bolívar--whether taken directly from historical documents or imparted on the general by Márquez--in which the old soldier predicts the pitfalls and chaos that will consume his land in the next 150 years. Though it's painful to read the cynical declarations of a man who has dedicated his life to a goal he now realizes is hopeless, these very pronunciations are what sets Márquez's General apart as a realistic and tragic character.
Though I found some parts difficult to trudge through, the book succeeds as a historical narrative, in that it provides insight into an entire continent's evolution through the eyes of one man.
Solid, But Certainly Not His Best.......2006-07-21
For those of us who have come to love Marquez, this book comes as a slight disappointment. The story of Bolivar's final journey and his relationship both with a myriad of women and with his servant is full of interesting insights and anecdotes, but lacks the kind of beauty, especially in respects to setting and language, that his previous work displays. Maybe it's because he was trying to honor or at least chronicle an important figure in South American history, but the novel seems too confined in scope. Marquez is forced to confine his normally tangential and often beautiful descriptions to the life of a celebrated figure. That being said, this book is still a fascinating read and better than most of the novels on the market today.
Distressingly soporific.......2004-12-06
I have a feeling that Gabo should have just let Alvaro Mutis sit on this project. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of at least three (really entertaining and pleasurable) masterpieces of fiction (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, and the short stories of Strange Pilgrims), seems to have entered into a lull during the writing of The General in His Labyrinth. The best expression I can think of to classify this book is "distressingly soporific". The General (Simon Bolivar) always seems to be lying in the "aguas depurativas de la bañera" and the story moves as slowly as an old man's body (with apology to agile old men). There's barely a climax, and you were expecting it anyway: Bolivar dies. Meanwhile, Bolivar reflects on his political experiences and rather libertine love life, and treks with his entourage into exile. If you haven't read a lot of Garcia Marquez, try his masterpieces, and then his deep and satisfying memoir (Living to Tell the Tale), and don't bother with The General in his Labyrinth.
Couldn't get through it.......2004-08-28
I tried and tried to keep reading this book, but it wasn't interesting to me. The General was a pathetic old man who seemed to be living a life of self pity. I got tired of his whining. I know Gabriel Garcia Marquez is very respected for his writing, but I just couldn't get into it. I guess I prefer books that I feel I have something to learn or are atleast entertaining.
A Master Work.......2004-01-22
Marques remains an international literary treasure, a writer of passion and eloquence whose work defines his generation. Many readers have found his work daunting and given up, but those who persevered discovered a world where magic and passion reigned. With Oprah Winery's choice of Marques's most famous work, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" for her book club, I can only hope that readers will not stop there and will continue on to his other works. "The General and His Labyrinth" would make an excellent stop for those wanting to further explore this author's imagination.
The work follows Simon Bolivar, the liberator of his South America, as he wanders towards an early grave, destitute and nearly friendless. Through this lens Marques examines the idea of loss, futility, dreaming, desire, friendship, and humanity. As a man who achieves so much but ends with so little, Bolivar's life makes an excellent cautionary metaphor for modern society. Readers will find little of the humor this author so cleverly places in his other work, but his style remains both unique and haunting. Marques here builds a complex and perplexing world and when the reader becomes confused, it is because that was the authors goal.
"General" is quite a bit shorter than most of Marques's other works, but his powerful language and masterful imagery rings out from the page. Bolivar has a long and painful trip to take and you will not regret deciding to join him.
Customer Reviews:
one of the best books i've read.......1999-09-09
I read this book in 7th grade. If you like biographies you will love this one.This man was a brave man who led many revolutions.He was born in 1783 in Caracas,Venezuela on July 24.He declared independence for Venezuela in 1811.He died near Santa Marta in 1830.
Book Description
Based on actual events, this sweeping novel tells the life story of a woman who was willing to risk it all for her country and her lover—in whose legacy lies the history of an entire continent.
Our Lives Are the Rivers tells the story of beautiful young freedom fighter Manuela Sáenz, and the epic tale of her long love affair with liberator Simón Bolívar. A novel of intoxicating love, passion, and adventure, Jaime Manrique vividly captures a dynamic continent struggling for its own identity.
Customer Reviews:
Swept Away.......2007-06-21
Determination, perseverance, courage, and sheer nerve are just some of the qualities that describe this novel and its main character Manuela Sáenz, a strong-minded woman who wins the heart of South America's most famous (and at one point infamous) military general. Told through the perspective of Doña Manuela Sáenz and her two African slaves Natán and Jonotás, the novel relates the events that happened to Manuela from her first memories as a child when her mother dies to her own dieing day, along with all the challenges and passions that happened during the course of her life. Manuela goes from being the bastard child of a chance romance to the lover of South America's "Liberator" Simon Bolívar. In between these events Manrique has beautifully related the hard facts of Manuela's life as a bastard child in her house in Quito, Ecuador where she is left in the care of her aunt and grandmother who loathe and despise her after her mother dies, as a student in a the school of the Concepta nuns where she is ridiculed and ostracized for her birth and criolla heritage, and as a wife in a loveless marriage to an Englishman named James Thorne where she is living in wealth with her soul in decay. Yet, despite her "caged" life, as Manuela often describes it, she dares to aid her country in its walk towards independence and is made a Knight of the Order of the Sun for her efforts towards Peru's independence. It is at this crucial point in her life that her world is turned upside-down when she meets the eminent liberator Simon Bolívar in 1822. From this moment on, readers will be swept into a river romance that will leave them breathless with anticipation and sighing with sadness...
Jaime Manrique has created a beautiful blend of history and fiction that will make it very difficult for you to put down this book. This is a wonderful novel that is a necessary addition to any lover of historical fiction's bookshelf.
Mnauelita lover and researcher.......2007-05-26
I loved this book, too. It is enthralling. I wanted to read it in one sitting. However, I have to say that it sounds like many amazon reviewers believe the book as historical truth. The basic facts are true because Manrique uses a historical character, Manuela Saenz. But not everything is real. He has writing about thoughts and emotions that no one can prove. From all the research I have done on Manuela, I have never read that she devoured stories about Simon Bolivar as a young woman. This is a romantic notion the makes Manrique's historical romantic novel good.
Manuela Saenz was born with a strong independent spirit. Her mother also had a strong spirit, hence the baby out of wedlock. La Saenz saw the injustice of the sexist classist world from a young age due to the way her aunt treated her like a red-headed step child due to her illegitimate birth. La Saenz work for independence from Spain before she ever met Bolivar. while she lived in Peru. San Martin awarded her a medal for her participation and success in that movement. Afterwards, when she met Bolivar, it was only natural that they worked together as a team because they shared the same dream.
This is not a 100% factual book but it is a GREAT read. I loved it, but be careful you don't believe every detail as truth.
Romance.......2006-09-23
In 1808, Napoleon forced King Charles IV of Spain to abdicate and installed his elder brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. Joseph's five years as king (1808-1813) were a vast improvement in Spanish government: he abolished the Inquisition, put an end to rampant corruption and gave the Spanish their first constitution. The Spanish people, however, resented a "foreign" government and rebelled, demanding the return of the heir apparent, Fernando, whom they called "El Deseado." Goya's painting of rebels before a firing squad ("El Tres de Mayo del 1808") commemorates a date that has become a Spanish national holiday.
The chaos of rebellion in Spain, coupled with English control of the seas, left the Spanish territories in America virtually ungoverned and all of them proclaimed, and eventually earned, their independence. Simón Bolívar, perhaps the greatest hero of South American Independence, had an almost equally famous lover, Manuela Saenz, who joined him on campaign and earned the rank of colonel. Our Lives are the Rivers is the story of their relationship, told in the first person by Manuela herself. Mr. Manrique weaves a story that is closer to romance novel than to scholarly biography, but it is a superior romance novel about real, interesting people.
The "Desired" heir Fernando returned to Spain in 1813, was crowned and turned out to be one of the most corrupt kings in all of long Spanish history. "The Desired One" was lazy, reactionary and suspicious; he abolished the Constitution and reinstated the Inquisition.
Francisco Goya also painted (1800) a huge portrait of the family of Charles IV, which someone described as looking "like the corner grocer and his wife after having won the lottery." The king looks as vacant as he was and the queen is smirking. The future Fernando VII is the nice-looking boy in blue who became a brute.
History in the Form of Art.......2006-08-22
Never disappointed with the work of Jaime Manrique it was a joy to open his attractive new novel. I discovered Manuela Sáenz whose vibrant life progressed from measure to measure with an intensity that was believable and certainly palpable. As in many art forms, the margins reveal more than the center. Manrique gives a voice to Manuela's slaves whose words create different images and perspectives allowing the reader space to ponder what actually happened.
There is a tension like a taunt thread that pulls one from one page to the next. There is also a psychological tension here that makes one aware of Manrique's pathos and his rapport with his subject. This is a novel that will have more than one life in your hands.
A Powerful River.......2006-08-10
Although the word "masterpiece" is too often used for works of art that fall short of that superlative, I can find no other word to adequately describe Jaime Manrique's novel Our Lives Are the Rivers. It offers a far deeper understanding of the historical intrigues behind South American history than I was ever taught in school; it also manages to integrate those details in a way that is both organic and emotionally compelling. Manrique makes us care about the characters (despite and because of their shortcomings) and their influence on history. This novel became a life-size hologram, allowing the people, the places, and the sensory details to spring up around me, till I entered the narrative. I was no longer conscious of reading a work of fiction; I was immersed in a very real world. Manrique does this not only because he knows about and empathizes with his characters so deeply, but also because he writes so beautifully. The flow of his gorgeous prose carries the story like a powerful river pushing a boat to its irrevocable conclusion. It was hard to put this book down. After the final haunting scene closed and I shut the cover, Manuela's story (as well as Bolívar's and the two slaves') remained with me, as if hovering nearby in a phantom state.
Product Description
Simon Bolivar, liberator of five nations from Spanish tutelage, is one of the towering public figures that our hemisphere has produced. As a soldier he gave warfare in America a new dimension by establishing that makeshift forces, if imaginatively led and with grass roots support, could triumph over better drilled, better equipped external armies. Some internationalists credit Bolivar with planting the seeds of the League of Nations and the United Nations.
Book Description
Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, introduces this authoritative biography of the great 19th century liberator of Latin America.
Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), called el liberator, was the political leader and battlefield general of the Latin American independence movement. In what has been widely hailed as the definitive biography of this central figure of Latin American history, Simon Bolivar is a comprehensive, critical and passionate book that separates the man from the legend, and portrays Bolivar as orator, writer, politician and freedom fighter.
Average customer rating:
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Simon Bolivar - Hombre de Caracas, Proyecto de America (Coleccion Historias Americanas)
David Bushnell
Manufacturer: Editorial Biblos
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 950786315X |
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- A Great Warrior's Last Battle
- Bolivar's stream of conciousness?
- garcia marquez parece cansado
- el general en su laberinto
- el general en su laberinto
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El General en su Laberinto (Novela)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Manufacturer: Editorial Oveja Negra
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ASIN: 9580600066 |
Book Description
This a one of the most important novels written by this author which everyone must read.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Warrior's Last Battle.......2007-04-18
A fictionalized account of Simon Bolivar, based on his last voyage, illness and death. For one like myself who didn't know much about the
<
> of South America, it was enlightening, powerful and sad. The great man is portrayed in decline, but with flashes of his previous brilliance and intuitive vision. The portrait is all too human--a man of tremendous ego, vanity, libido, and charisma. A man who turned away from his upbringing to become a revolutionary. A man who lost his wife after eight months of marriage and never again formed a committed relationship with a woman. A man idolized, loved, and hated by his countrymen. A man deeply disappointed that his vision of a unified South American nation never materialized.
Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is of course a genius and writes this book with his usual flair. It is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction in the narrative, but then again, it doesn't matter. He conveys the spirit of a man and his times. It was hard to put the book down and I'm sure I'll come back to it again. I recommend this one highly.
Bolivar's stream of conciousness?.......2001-03-03
To appreciate this book at its true worth one does need to do some homework. Understanding a little bit of the political complexities that surrounded the end of the independence wars and the start of the nation building process would help to gain a perspective to allow a better appreciation of a narration that pretends to present us a sick, depressed Bolivar. Yet, even if you refuse to do that home work, it will be a very good read. We are not in 100 Years of Solitude anymore here. This book has an odd sense of reality since it focuses more to the inner workings of Bolivar's mind, and his way of facing the end. Perhaps what makes the book really interesting it to see the image that Bolivar has over the cultural elites of Northern South Ameica, his legacy that for better or for worse inspires great writer like Garcia Marquez, or opportunistic politicians like we can see today in Venezuela. Reading how Garcia Marquez imagines the end of the Bolivarian epic is more fascinating than the story itself.
garcia marquez parece cansado.......2000-06-17
este libro no me gusto en lo mas minimo, a diferencia de sus otros libros que he disfrutado, este libro pide un esfuerzo sobre humano para dejarse leer, y ademas es bastante dificil diferenciar la ficcion de los datos historicos a menos que uno sea un experto en historia sur americana.Algunos datos referentes a las caracteristicas fisicas de Simon Bolivar, son datos muy curiosos pero que requeririan confirmacion.A algunas personas les agradara el libro, sobre todo creo que a los historiadores, pero para el publico en general resulta muy aburrido
LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do
el general en su laberinto.......1999-11-24
requiero ver si de favor me podrían mandar la información del libro el general en su laberinto o algún link donde encuentre un ensayo del libro yo requiero un ensayo en español.
el general en su laberinto.......1999-11-24
quiero ver si me pueden proporcionar un ensayo de la obra el general en su laberinto es para un trabajo escolar y el libro en méxico no existe. espero me puedan ayudar y me lo manden en español gracias
Book Description
General Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), called El Liberator, and sometimes the "George Washington" of Latin America, was the leading hero of the Latin American independence movement. His victories over Spain won independence for Bolivia, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Bolivar became Columbia's first president in 1819. In 1822, he became dictator of Peru. Upper Peru became a separate state, which was named Bolivia in Bolivar's honor, in 1825. The constitution, which he drew up for Bolivia, is one of his most important political pronouncements. Today he is remembered throughout South America, and in Venezuela and Bolivia his birthday is a national holiday. Although Bolivar never prepared a systematic treatise, his essays, proclamations, and letters constitute some of the most eloquent writing not of the independence period alone, but of any period in Latin American history. His analysis of the region's fundamental problems, ideas on political organization and proposals for Latin American integration are relevant and widely read today, even among Latin Americans of all countries and of all political persuasions. The "Cartagena Letter," the "Jamaica Letter," and the "Angostura Address," are widely cited and reprinted.
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