Simon Bolivar, the Liberator Paperback – August 15, 2013

This is a biography that I bought as a homeschool book for our year three rotation of history. It is informative and easy to read for the High School level.

Simon Bolivar, the Liberator, by Guillermo Sherwell is a very informative history of the difficult and heroic life of Bolivar. It presents a picture of a man who persevered with his dream for the separation of major parts of South America from Spanish rule and the creation of a federalist form of government against extreme obstacles.It was a surprise to learn that the effort was complicated by the reluctance of much of the population to accept independent rule, and the conflict from the some of the revolutionaries themselves, many of them Bolivar's comrades in arms, who even after separation from Spain desired a monarchical form of government. The initial brutality of the royalist against the local population was shocking.The map showing the chronology of the battles and the geography presented in the book is essential to anyone not familiar with Colombia and Venezuela to get an appreciation of the distances involved and the movement of the armies.Keeping track of the historical figures was also a little difficult to follow.

This book does not cover Bolivar's early life or the romantic aspects of it like the Neflix series did. It was written a long time ago (like 100 years) and translated. It seems to cover almost every battle (there are hundreds of them) and every general who was for or against him. Without a map it is difficult to follow where all these small towns in Venezuela, Columbia, Guyana, etc. are and where he's going and who he is fighting against. There are many different groups of Spaniards, Royalists, Natives, and mixed race people. It is often mentioned that he was not popular in a lot of area, but I never understood why. He was a great man, pretty much liberating most of northern South America from the Spaniards and freeing the slaves. But as soon as he left one place, it fell apart or was taken over by a despot. I kind of think that's still going on today.

I believe this is a Kindle deal? The deals and free books greatly expand our homeschool reading beyond what we can find at the library.

An excellent resource covering South American history in depth a topic not often covering in North American education but definitely a necessity for understanding our world.

Too often in our study of world history, South America receives short shrift. If we learn of Simon Bolivar, at all, it is usually on our way to Europe and the Napoleonic age. This work not only presents the struggles for South American independence from Spain, but also the huge role that the great Liberator played in the quest for democracy in the Americas. For the student biography would provide an interesting contrast to George Washington and even Abraham Lincoln. For other readers of history much can be learned about the history of our Southern neighbors.

Biased towards Simone bolivar. Highly recommend Bolivar:American Liberator by Marie Arana. This book is written from an unbiased point of view as well as being extremely informational.

at a time that a movement that have been brewing since M-19 in Colombia 1970's, triying to glorify Bolivar, gets a big face in Hugo Chavez, I find this book a little too loose in the facts, glorifing Bolivar but not recognizing that maybe his biggest defficiency was to understand that a revolution in the Americas would never be like the American or French revolution, that it would not hold because of the extreme divisions and frankly the people had been kept extremely ignorant and that made it easy for the opressor, Spain, to create a fear that exist still today, reason for big Populist like Chavez to have a go.