2025 Philadelphia Tango Festival
April 30, 2025
The endless fascination with Bolívar.
Simón Bolívar helped liberate 5 countries: Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Since then he has been the subject of countless biographies. Below is a new one, written by Marie Arana and reviewed in the Washington Post. An excerpt from the review:
“Bolivar” is a monumental achievement destined to win some major literary prizes. Like most recent books on the North American founders, it assumes that all icons are also flawed creatures. All of Bolivar’s flaws are on display here — his inveterate womanizing, periodic bouts of arrogance, flirtation with Napoleonic versions of omnipotence. But if Jefferson is eventually proved right, and democracy does come to Latin America in full form, the man so brilliantly recovered in these pages will be shouting hosannas from the heavens.
