Simon Bolivar

The soldier poet: Viva Byron!, by Hugh Thomson, reviewed

15 March 2025 9:00 am

What would have happened had Lord Byron fought for Simon Bolivar in Latin America, rather than dying of fever in Missolonghi, campaigning for Greek independence?

Freedom fighters of the ‘forgotten continent’

9 November 2024 9:00 am

A history of South America’s native heroes includes the Peruvian rebel Tupac Amaro II, the Mapuche of Chile, the escaped slaves of north-eastern Brazil and the ‘great liberator’ Simon Bolivar

Humboldt talks to one of the indigenous people in Turbaco (today’s Columbia) en route to Bogotá.

Alexander Humboldt: a great explorer rediscovered

6 February 2016 9:00 am

The Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt was once the most famous man in Europe bar Napoleon. And if you judge…

Peru's Indians are repressed with more efficiency than blacks ever were in South Africa

4 April 2015 9:00 am

In The Spectator of 21 March a column by Toby Young caught my eye. Discussing the pros and cons of…