Epilogue

Abstract

If the story of the circulation of Bolívar’s figure turns on processes involving the formation of national, hemispheric, and academic traditions, the three spaces of engagement sometimes coinciding with one another and other times diverging, the idea that we can step outside all this is fraught with challenges. In fact, even when we claim otherwise, we cannot help but, in some manner, participate in them. All of which is not to cast doubt on the expertise that has been displayed over the decades on Bolívar and his contexts, but rather to emphasize the complexity that defines the thinking and writing of his figure on the geopolitical stage of the Americas. That complexity is, perhaps, easier to recognize in the cases of those interpreters who openly address previous or contemporary interpretations of his figure in their bid to make their vision prevail than it is in that of the vast majority who do not, claiming, to the contrary, that their version constitutes a restoration of Bolívar to his original contexts or to the contexts that, in fact, matter and in whose light we can see him accurately.