Simón Bolívar

1783–1830

Simón Bolívar led independence movements that helped free Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and the country later named Bolivia from Spanish rule. A wealthy Creole revolutionary, he combined military campaigning with visions of republican union and strong executive government. Bolívar became president of Gran Colombia but failed to overcome regional rivalry and political opposition. He resigned and died in 1830 as the union he had created was breaking apart.

Gabriel García Márquez’s The General in His Labyrinth portrays Bolívar during his final journey, reflecting on victory, illness and political disappointment. He appears in many Latin American historical novels about independence. Fiction often contrasts the liberator’s ideal of continental unity with authoritarian methods and the persistence of social hierarchies after colonial rule.

C. S. Forester’s Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies is set in the early 1820s Rear-Admiral Hornblower commands Britain’s West Indies station.

Series

Series featuring Simón Bolívar (1 series)

Hornblower Saga in Order

by C. S. Forester 12 books 4.3

The Horatio Hornblower novels follow a Royal Navy officer from his first service as a midshipman during the French Revolutionary Wars to senior command after the defeat of Napoleon. The books combine shipboard life, naval combat, intelligence work, diplomacy and the practical burdens of command with Hornblower’s private…

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