Table Of ContentROBERT T. CONN
BOLÍVAR’S
AFTERLIFE IN
THE
AMERICAS
Biography, Ideology,
and the Public Sphere
Bolívar’s Afterlife in the Americas
Robert T. Conn
Bolívar’s Afterlife
in the Americas
Biography, Ideology, and the Public Sphere
Robert T. Conn
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT, USA
ISBN 978-3-030-26217-4 ISBN 978-3-030-26218-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26218-1
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A
cknowledgments
I owe deep gratitude to Megan Laddusaw, acquisitions editor for History
at Palgrave Macmillan, for her interest in my project and her support as I
brought it to its final point. I thank the two peer reviewers, who, in their
careful assessment of the manuscript, offered clear and precise recommen-
dations for improvement. Christine Pardue, assistant editor, expertly
shepherded the book through the design and marketing phase.
Independent editor Victoria Stahl assisted in important ways with final
editing and preparation of the manuscript for delivery, and I am most
grateful to her.
This project took many years to complete, and support has come from
many quarters. I owe Chap. 14 to Mary Long of University of Colorado,
Boulder. It was first a paper for a conference organized by Mary and then
expanded into a longer essay for a book co-edited by her and Linda Egan
(University of California, Davis), entitled Mexican Intellectuals Reading
the United States [Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009]. I thank
Vanderbilt University Press for allowing me to adapt the essay for this
book. Fernando Degiovanni (CUNY Graduate Center), my former
Wesleyan colleague, organized a panel at a meeting of the Latin American
Studies Association at which I presented a paper on Waldo Frank’s 1951
Bolívar biography, now the second part of Chap. 11. José del Pino of
Dartmouth College invited me to give a lecture, which became the blue-
print for my discussion of Bolívar in Colombia in Chap. 12. Diana Sorensen
of Harvard University also invited me to speak on the project. I thank all
these scholars for giving me the opportunity to share my work and develop
it in dialogue with other researchers.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have received other forms of assistance as well. Jeff Rider and Krishna
Winston, in their roles as chair of the Romance Languages and Literatures
Department and dean of the Arts and Humanities at Wesleyan University,
helped me secure a project grant for a trip I made to Venezuela, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia in the summer of 2007. Significant funding for
this research trip also came from the Catherine and Thomas McMahon
Fund. In Caracas, historian Carole Leal Curiel welcomed me at the
Universidad Simón Bolívar Social Sciences Center, of which she was direc-
tor, as did her team of scholars. Several were kind enough to take me to
visit the Archivo de Bolívar, the Central University of Venezuela, and
Venezuela’s National Pantheon. I also thank Wesleyan for its generous
sabbatical policy.
Teaching has been an important part of this project. Over the years, I
have given four courses on Bolívar at Wesleyan University. I thank the
students for their dedication to and passion for the texts examined. I also
had the opportunity to explore the book topic in a graduate seminar I
taught at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in the summer of 2008 entitled
“Bolívar in the Américas.” Scholars and writers Cristina Iglesia and Noé
Jitrik made that teaching experience possible.
I thank Katherine Wolfe and Lisa Pinette of Wesleyan University’s
Interlibrary Loan Office, who assisted me in obtaining a great many of the
books I cite. Similarly, I thank Stella Villagrán of the Columbus Memorial
Library at the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C., who
helped me acquire documents related to the foundational moments of the
OAS of which I speak in Chap. 9.
Historian Ann Wightman, with whom I collaborated for many years in
our roles as members of Wesleyan’s Latin American Studies Program, was
a constant source of inspiration. US historian Patricia Hill, with whom I
similarly had the pleasure of working, inspired me through her commit-
ment to the scholars in the Center for the Americas’ Mellon postdoctoral
program and her intellectual generosity.
James McGuire, Melanie Khamis, María Ospina, Paula Park, and Valeria
López Fadul—colleagues in Wesleyan’s Latin American Studies Program—
have offered insights and encouragement. Carlos Dimas of the University
of Nevada at Las Vegas has given me food for thought about Latin
American Independence and the scholars and intellectuals who have
reflected on it.
Andrew Curran, my colleague in Romance Languages and Literatures,
has shared with me his knowledge of the French Enlightenment and has
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
been an important interlocutor. Ellen Nerenberg and Antonio González,
also colleagues in Romance Languages and Literatures at Wesleyan, have
been supportive throughout the writing of the manuscript. Khachig
Tololyan, of Wesleyan’s College of Letters and founder and editor of the
journal Diaspora, has generously conversed with me over the years about
my project, while sending me books and articles on Bolívar and Latin
American independence.
My colleague in Spanish, Michael Armstrong Roche, made himself
available to speak about topics related to the history of both Spain and
Latin America, including the Habsburgs and Bourbons. I particularly
appreciate our conversations about the Spanish Cortes and Spanish liberal-
ism. Susanne Fusso, professor of Russian, East European, and Eurasian
Studies and Joseph M. Siry, professor of Art History, also of Wesleyan
University, have stuck by my side, kindly asking me over the years for
updates on my progress, their words communicating their belief that what
I was doing was valuable. I thank Susanne for reading an early draft of the
Introduction and her thoughts about the order of the chapters and Joe for
pointing me to books on Paul Cret’s design for the OAS building and Pan
American architecture.
I also thank José M. del Pino, who invited me for a second time to
Dartmouth College in the winter of 2017 to speak about Bolívar’s Jamaica
Letter; Dr. John Gruendel and Dr. Jordan Kassalow for their interest in my
work; Tony Emerson, former managing editor of Newsweek International,
also for his interest in the project and questions about its narrative form;
Elizabeth Conn for her encouragement; Fernando Degiovanni for our
conversations about our field and his inspiration; my dissertation advisor at
Princeton University, Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, for his brilliant courses in
the late 1980s examining literature, historiography, and politics; and James
D. Fernández of New York University for encouraging me many years ago
to undertake the study and for his moral support along the way.
I cannot conclude these acknowledgments without stating my debt of
gratitude to Mary Long who over the years has taken time to talk with me
about this project. With her impeccable judgment, Mary has shared with
me her always sage and incisive thoughts. She has also been kind enough
to read individual chapters.
I am indebted to Cristina Iglesia for the extraordinary support she has
lent me over the long duration of my work on this book: from her stead-
fast belief that this project was worthwhile to her thoughts and comments
on moments and issues touched upon, and her wise counsel at an editorial
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
level. Cristina’s generosity is known to many and I am fortunate to count
myself among those who have benefited from it.
I thank my parents, Nancy Tobin and the late Richard A. Conn, for all
they have given me.
Finally, I would never have been able to do the work of this project
were it not for my wife Fen Yao, who brings joy to my life through the
warmth of her company, the depth of her understanding, the inspiration
of her goodwill and commitment to others, and the intensity and sophis-
tication of her inquisitive mind.
c
ontents
1 An Introduction 1
2 Toward a Usable Narrative 53
3 Bolívar in Nineteenth-Century Venezuela 77
4 José Martí and Venezuela: Redressing Bolivarian Doctrine 99
5 From Liberalism to Positivism: Gil Fortoul and Vallenilla
Lanz 119
6 Rufino Blanco Fombona: An Exile in Spain 155
7 The Construction of a Patrician Heritage and of
Calumny: Vicente Lecuna, La Casa Natal, El Archivo del
Libertador, and the Bolivarian Society 171
8 Revising the Bolivarian Machine: A Venezuela Reclaimed
by New Intellectuals 201
9 Pan Americanism Above Ground: Bolívar in the United
States 227
ix
x CONTENTS
10 A Rebirth 255
11 Bolívar in the Wake of World War II: Gerhard Masur and
Waldo Frank 281
12 The Bolívar-Santander Polemic in Colombia: Germán
Arciniegas and Gabriel García Márquez 303
13 Bolívar and Sucre in Ecuador: A Case of Two
Assassinations 349
14 Vasconcelos as Screenwriter: Bolívar Remembered 371
15 Bolívar in Bolivia: On Fathers and Creators 397
16 Institution Building in Peru: Ricardo Palma and Víctor
Andrés Belaúnde 423
17 Bolívar in the Río de la Plata 443
18 Epilogue 469
Bibliography 487
Index 503
