Ask most North Americans what they know about Simón Bolívar, and
the answer will likely be that he was “the George Washington of
South America.” As Marie Arana’s highly readable biography makes
clear, this comparison only goes so far. Both men were brilliant
generals who played a key role in liberating their native soil
from a colonial oppressor. And both went on, however
reluctantly, to take up political power once their revolutions
were won. But in other ways the two men, like the two
revolutions, were sharply different.  Bolívar’s legendary
campaigns covered half a continent; he is said to have ridden
75,000 miles on horseback, crossing vast plains, malarial swamps
and frigid Andean passes in pursuit of the Spanish forces. His
victories were dazzling, but the seesaw struggle for
independence from Spain proved to be far longer, far bloodier
and far crueler than anything seen in the American colonies.
Civilian massacres and mass executions were common on both the
royalist and republican sides, and hostilitie