BOLIVAR AND THE UNITED STATES
Resumen: Among the numerous works that have been written during the past decade in commemoration of the centennials of declarations of independence by the Spanish American republics, those dealing with the life and times of Sim6n Bolivar are the most
remarkable. In them the character and career of the Liberator are discussed with an amount of fullness unequalled by any of the earlier treatises. The aspects of his versatile genius, his psychology, his personal habits, his talents and achievements as soldier, statesman, author and political philosopher, his place among the great men of all time, are revealed to an extraordinary degree. So many are the angles of vision from which his share in the emancipation of Spanish America is viewed, that the student of the activities of this eminent son of the New World finds the task of investigation much facilitated.
Though most of the writers and compilers who have contributed to this revival of interest in Bolivar endeavor to appreciate him in the light of the age in which he lived, and to measure his service to posterity, without injecting into the past preconceptions and prejudices born of recent events, a few have seen fit to make him an instrument for the manifestation of their particular views and hobbies. Because of international issues arising in and around the Caribbean region, and because of the animnosities kindled by the present war, they have tried to justify their personal dislike for the United States by assertions purporting
to show that the Liberator himself entertained much the same sentiment toward this country. That they have no evidence to substantiate their opinions is no deterrent to their expression of them. Historians and psychologists, they appear to think, are bound to interpret-and misinterpret-the thought of a great man whenever he does not give it utterance in a manner to suit their prepossessions. Elucidations of this sort make theorizing easy and dogmatizing a delight. They render signal aid, also, to malignant propaganda against the United States in certain of the Spanish-American countries and in Spain itself. Much of what is asserted, indeed, is to all intents and purposes wilful
distortion.
Autor(es): William R. Shepherd
Palabras clave: Bolivar, United States, Spanish – American,
Editorial: Duke University Press – 1918
Fuente: The Hispanic American Historical Review , Aug., 1918, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Aug., 1918),
pp. 270-298
