Earning glory on the fields of battle, Simón Bolívar, who fought to 
free South America from Spanish rule from 1810 to 1826, was one 
of the most influential figures in Latin American history. Richard 
W. Slatta and Jane Lucas De Grummond bring forth the entire 
story of Bolívar, with special attention to the ups and the downs of 
his military career.

    Bolívar’s life contained all the makings of an epic war hero: 
repeated comebacks from defeat, flashes of military genius, 
tremendous mood swings, dogged persistence, a near-manic quest 
for glory, and fall from political grace. Egomaniacal, he strived for 
military might and political power.

     Drawing from an immense corpus of writings left behind by 
Bolívar, his allies, and his enemies, the authors transport the reader 
back to the life and times of "the Liberator." The first biography to 
suggest that Bolívar suffered from bipolar disorder, Simón 
Bolívar’s Quest for Glory shows how the conflicts he faced during 
the independence era set a political pattern followed by much of 
Latin America for the next century.

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RICHARD W. SLATTA teaches history at North Carolina State 
University in Raleigh. JANE LUCAS De GRUMMOND was the 
first woman to teach history at Louisiana State University. 
Following her death and at her brother’s request, Slatta updated 
and revised the book to its present form.


Number Eighty-six: Texas A&M University Military History 
Series


What people are saying about this book

“De Grummond and Slatta have provided an engaging, 
exhaustive, effective starting point for students of Bolívar’s 
movement and the personalities of his era.”—Journal of 
Military History