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NATION BUILDING & NATIONALISM San Martín: Argentine Soldier, American Hero. By John Lynch. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv, 265. Illustrations. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $35.00 cloth.
In 2006 the distinguished British Latin Americanist John Lynch presented his Simón Bolívar: A Life. He now follows with the first new biography written in English for many decades about South America's second-most iconic liberator, José de San Martín, who began or completed the independence movements in Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Dubbed by Lynch one of "the strong, silent men of history" (p. 227), San Martin pursued strategies for war and revolution, not concepts for the future political organization of the continent. Though a monarchist, he was not a politician, and indeed his chief failure occurred when in 1821 he took on the burden of organizing a government for the part of Peru that he had liberated. His great achievement was his continental plan to complete the liberation of Chile from across the Andes in Argentina and then to carry his army by sea to Peru, forming the southern arm of the great pincers of the wars of independence, for which Bolívar provided the northern arm.
The most salient feature of Lynch's treatment is the way in which San Martin's personality is revealed. He was not so much a hero, in spite of...