David Bushnell The Future Of Blivar Summary

The author of this piece feels that while there is a wealth of biographies on Bolivar and that many, if not most, of these pieces serve as attempts to connect Bolivar with future groups in Venezuela. Bushnell feels that this frequently serves to prohibit a clear and unbiased account of Bolivar’s life. In order to rectify this the author wrote this book with the purpose to create an accurate account of the life of Bolivar, without the obstruction of minutely analyzing how each event would shape future events in Venezuela, while still paying heed to Bolivar’s lasting importance. In this I feel that Bushnell was successful. In this piece Bushnell made excellent use of the sources available. He used both primary sources, correspondences, contemporary news articles, memoirs, government documents and a host of secondary sources, some of which, such as the work by Madariaga, have been discussed in this paper. Of particular importance is Bushnell extensive use of personal correspondences sent by Bolivar. These help to not only show the facts of the time, but also the mindset of Bolivar.

The piece gives a positive view overall on the life of Simon Bolivar, but Bushnell in several places takes time to examine the counterpoint arguments to this. A good example of this can be seen on page 128 when he says, “Bomboná has probably earned earned Bolivar more criticism than any of his other major battles, both for the strategy and prior maneuvering that brought him to the battlefield and for his management of forces in the fighting itself, hurling so many men against a nearly impregnable position.” This quote is a clear example of the author countering both bias by omission or bias by commission. Bushnell clearly shows himself to be well read on the subject and attempts to offer an account that provides both views on the