This translation of Rafael Caldera’s interpretive introduction to the work of Venezuelan-born Andrés Bello, 1781-1865, fills an obvious gap in the literature available in English. Based on a work first published in 1935, the present edition is essentially without significant change in ideas. Some portions of the text have been rearranged, and the footnotes have been revised to include some materials published as recently as 1965.
Beginning with a chronological sketch of Bello’s life—including his work in Venezuela, Great Britain, and especially Chile—the study devotes separate chapters to his writings in the fields suggested by the title. It concludes that Bello’s ideas speak to the twentieth-century search for a uniquely Latin American experience, and it finds his greatness in his breadth and overall sense of balance. Bello exemplified an avoidance of extremes; an eclecticism in his ability to incorporate foreign ideas selectively; and a willingness, although admittedly restrained, to consider new or pragmatic solutions to the problems at hand rather than to insist on ideological or methodological orthodoxy.
The work is far from definitive as a biography. It treats Bello as a theorist but all too often as one largely detached from any specific context. It describes him as a philosopher of education, for example, but not as an actual university administrator engaged in day-to-day activities with his colleagues and students. Perhaps because of this, it also fails to deal with Bello in any significantly critical manner. Nevertheless, the book is based on Bello’s own writings, and it serves admirably as an introduction to his life and thought.
