Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has declared himself the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution in South America. Considering the great lengths to which Chavez has gone to pick a fight with the United States over its policies on that continent, it is worthwhile to spend some time studying the man whose name Chavez has appropriated.

John Lynch’s biography of Simon Bolivar, “A Life,” is the first English-language biography of the man known as “the liberator” in half a century. And, while it is almost painfully dry at times (even for a history major), it does shed some light on Chavez’ thinking.

Lynch’s biography is as much a military history as anything, and that is precisely what makes it so tedious. One can only read about so many charges through the mountains before one starts to drift off, especially when the descriptions are unaccompanied by maps and thus useless to the non-expert reader. But the rest of the material is quality.

Simon Bolivar was a member of the Venezuelan aristocracy. After receiving a good education in Europe, he decided that some of the great liberal thinkers of the Western tradition were on to something – and that the great Western colonial powers were not. He thus charted a course for confrontation with Spain.

The Napoleonic wars would give him his chance. Over a period of about twenty years, he would lead Venezeula to independence – and then move on to fight in Panama and Ecuador and liberate and lead Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia, which was of course named after Bolivar.

But the path was not always a smooth one. Bolivar faced great difficulties with democratically elected congresses feuding amongst themselves until the forces of reaction undid his work. He preferred to stay on the path of glory, moving on to liberate region after region, but he also spent many of his years serving as dictator.

This was especially true in the later years of his life, when he had concluded that the best way to have freedom in South America was to follow a unique model – not that of the United States, but rather one of his own design. His Bolivarian constitution was similar to ours in some respects, but had a much stronger executive: his president would serve for a lifetime and appoint his own successor.

It is here that one can see where Chavez feels an affinity for Bolivar. Though the liberator called himself a liberal, he often resorted towards stronger state control, and preferred there to be one firm hand on the ship of state. So too with Chavez.

Lynch concludes that Chavez’ use of Bolivar’s name is a misappropriation of Bolivar’s legacy, and it is hard to disagree. Certainly Bolivar had little of the distaste for the United States – or for the liberal classics of Western thought – that Chavez has.

It is not entirely necessary to slog through 350 pages on Bolivar’s wartime exploits and politics to see clearly that Chavez is not entirely justified in following his lead. But that is not what Lynch is out to prove. A biography of Bolivar should stand on its own, and Lynch’s does. Indeed, Lynch is probably wise to avoid talking about Chavez too much, considering the extreme political polarization surrounding him.

Still, a comparative work between Bolivar and Chavez would be interesting to read.