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. Throughout his heroic life, 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), and died relatively young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.

In 1813 Bolívar 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 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.

An “energetic and highly readable telling” (The Los Angeles Times), Bolívar “offers a clear-eyed assessment of the ideals, alliances, and human frailties that drove Bolívar’s choices and shaped the Americas” (The New Yorker).