The Legacy of Simon Bolivar

In 1783, the year George Washington resigned his commission as commander in chief and returned to Mount Vernon, Simon Bolivar was born to an aristocratic family in Caracas, Venezuela.

Bolivar would live to be the great Liberator of Spanish America — the southern hemisphere's George Washington, and maybe more. Not one nation but six freed from colonial empire, from the Caribbean to South America's southern tip.

Bolivar was a revolutionary hero who died in exile. He embodied a continent's struggle with race and class and democracy. He's embraced as a hero and anti-US symbol today by Venezuela's populist leader Hugo Chavez.

Hear about the first big English-language biography in fifty years of Simon Bolivar.

Guests:

Andrew Webb-Vidal, correspondent for the Financial Times in Caracas, Venezuela;
John Lynch, Emeritus Professor of Latin American History at the University of London.