Don Pedro Grases is a member of the generation of scholars who fled to Latin America in the wake of the Spanish Civil War. Although originally trained in literature and linguistics, he expanded his fields of interest to include the history and bibliography of his adopted homeland, Venezuela. The little book prompting this review contains a series of articles by prominent Venezuelans on his accomplishments, along with a detailed bibliography of his works. This collection is a well-deserved tribute to a man often denied recognition because of the excessive politicalization of Venezuelan historiography.
Grases’ work can be divided into three major categories: literature, bibliography, and history. In addition to his exhaustive and scholarly studies of Andrés Bello (1781-1865), he has contributed many articles and monographs on other important Venezuelan literary figures. As a bibliographer Grases has few equals in Venezuela. His studies on the historical literature of the Venezuelan independence movement are unsurpassed, and his less well-known articles on other bibliographical subjects are equally good. Yet he is most likely to be remembered as a historian and a promoter of historical enterprises, as will be clearly seen from a glance at the lengthy list of studies, compilations, editions, and series which he has written or edited. Although his historical enterprises have sometimes suffered from too close association with official historical institutions, his varied writings and his masterful historical entrepreneurship place him in the front rank of Venezuelan historians and among the major historians of all Latin America.
