Excerpt
BY MEANS OF A PROLOGUE
It is a pleasure to present a work based on facets that discover, or once again manifest, the Liberator’s prodigious personality and work.
Providence, which seems to pamper the tasks of historians, since they are who best show God’s maximum work when studying men’s acts, has placed the inexhaustible quarry of Simon Bolivar's life and work before Venezuelans and foreigners. A long and deep historical process is condensed within his person. Like the great men of humanity to whose lineage the genial citizens of Caracas belong, the Bolivarian campaign becomes universal and overflows the limits of a whole continent to take the message of faith in liberty to men throughout the world.
When the historic current towards the Liberator is considered, in my opinion it only examines it under the sole prism of Venezuelan, Great Colombian or American events. This sole prism would mutilate his thought. Furthermore, it would provide a half understanding of the finality of his work. By the right that his genius concedes to him, Bolivar is a man through universal autonomasy. More than a presentment, he truly knows that South American liberty to which he consecrates himself, involves a gift of future progressive development the beneficiaries of which should be, jointly with the Americans, men of all climates and of all races. For the artisans of five nations who owe him their liberty, these lands cannot constitute a closed ark where its inhabitants develop themselves outside of the universal process that can and should unite men and Nations. Tightly closed regional structures that are not solidary to the world that surrounds them, do not have a place in his thought and for this reason, he goes on to broaden his work and provide new fields to his wide and generous action. Caracas, Bogotá, Quito, Lima and La Paz, constitute the wide and rocky Andean platform where his universal personality shines. He searches for changes of a destiny in God’s own roads: the roads of men’s liberty, the personal or community potter of every historical process.
In the work that whoever reads these lines holds in his hands, the reader may appreciate the valor of a historian who has been formed by persistence, intelligence, very solid indeed, and serene and clear meditation that flows by means of his own style without the pretension of shining in vain.
Years ago I had the honor of meeting General VÃctor José Fernández BolÃvar. From this first moment we agreed, when we focused, during long talks, on various cultural matters. And above all, on matters regarding ancient and contemporary history. Since then, I realized that his forte was not light chronicles or partial anecdotes that, although it is true, help much, but cannot impart on their own, the scientific thought of history. In this field he was seen as a good plainsman of our fascinating Apure, always looking forward without resting and retiring to meditate, with silent seclusion, on the experience of that vital content with the past and the present....