Bolivar

American Liberator

By: Marie Arana

Narrated by: David Crommett

Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

It is astonishing that Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of South America, is not better known in the United States. He freed six countries from Spanish rule, traveled more than 75,000 miles on horseback to do so, and became the greatest figure in Latin American history. His life is epic, heroic, straight out of Hollywood: he fought battle after battle in punishing terrain, forged uncertain coalitions of competing forces and races, lost his beautiful wife soon after they married and never remarried (although he did have a succession of mistresses, including one who held up the revolution and another who saved his life), and he died relatively young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.

Drawing on a wealth of primary documents, novelist and journalist Marie Arana brilliantly captures early 19th-century South America and the explosive tensions that helped revolutionize Bolívar. In 1813 he launched a campaign for the independence of Colombia and Venezuela, commencing a dazzling career that would take him across the rugged terrain of South America, from Amazon jungles to the Andes mountains. From his battlefield victories to his ill-fated marriage and legendary love affairs, Bolívar emerges as a man of many facets: fearless general, brilliant strategist, consummate diplomat, passionate abolitionist, gifted writer, and flawed politician.

A major work of history, Bolívar colorfully portrays a dramatic life even as it explains the rivalries and complications that bedeviled Bolívar’s tragic last days. It is also a stirring declaration of what it means to be a South American.

©2013 Marie Arana (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

A Bloodbath Of Racial Hatred

He may only have been the necessary evil needed to counter the evil oppressors. The story presented devolves simply into a lifetime of one racially motivated massacre after another. Mindless violence, unconnected to any cause other than that of total annihilation. By the end, Bolivar's vision for an American Liberation becomes only a footnote to all the carnage. He may have originally had good and pure intentions as a young man, but his final legacy is finally only that of extreme violence and vanity. Not the George Washington I know.

Sympathetic Biography of a Complex Man

It is a shame (one which I share) that so few North Americans know much about the man who liberated massive parts of South America from Spanish rule and sought unsuccessfully to forge them into a single unified nation. Brilliant, vibrant, energetic, a man of enormous talents who brought Enlightenment ideas to bear, Bolivar became a winning general but a less effective statesman. Prone to quick, sometimes erroneous decisions, plagued by both infighting among his generals and divergent nationalists, his United States of South America was not to be. Even so, in his last dark days, sick and relinquishing power, used up physically and emotionally, he provided a hero for future generations and a harbinger for the next two centuries of regional power politics.

Very nice book!

I enjoyed this book, the reader did a good job with all the names, minus “Coro”

Excellent historical work!

You don't hear much about Bolivar he saw the need to undo wrong and did.

Well written and well read biography

I got this after watching the Netflix series Bolivar. I wanted to know the history of this amazing and strong character. This book is definitely worth listening to if you want to know more of the story. There are not many people in history with the grit, strength, and persistence of Simon Bolivar.

Extraordinary man, extraordinary story.

very well researched and exceptionally well written. I found it hard to put down and looked forward to picking it back up.

Bolivar comes to life

From the beginning I was enthralled by the narration of this great man’s life. Marie Arana documents Simón Bolivar as a prominent young aristocrat living in a Spanish colony and what shaped his anger towards the crown. Seeing the injustices of the royal empire in his native Venezuela lit the fire to wanting to liberate all of South America. He rallied all peoples to believe in his vision to kick the Spanish out of America. The narrator does a great job pronouncing all the names, places correctly. A must for your collection of Great War strategists!

There were a lot of battles.

I knew very little about Bolivar and this was enlightening. The man seemed to spend his life in battle and in bed. The battles got boring. Interesting insights at the end were helpful in understanding the continuing dictator problems in South America.

disliked narration, narrative lacks structure

it is hard to follow this narrative in written form. the different people of bolivars life come and go, and there is an almost random mixing of broad events and personal events. the word morass comes to mind. also, it is very hard to mark the passage of time in the narrative. perhaps the book is better when read than when listened to, but i am giving up after about 6 hours of listening (out of about 20). this is due to a combination of issues with the way the narrative jumps around, and my growing irritation with the narrator, who is very good with the pronunciation of the spanish names, and very bad at almost everything else. he reads with the cadence of one reading aloud a primer for small (and possibly learning disabled) children. the cadence does not typically relate to the content.

because i am very interested in the topic, i am switching to the book, The Bolivarian Revolution, apparently written by Bolivar and Hugo Chavez (which is interesting in and of itself). in listening to the excerpt, i find the narration much better, and at least from the excerpt, the content seems consistent with what is in this book.

excellent book, I felt back in history.

the book was a great review of Bolivar's life. I learned several things. in wish it was i in Spanish.