Andres Bello was a towering figure in nineteenth-century Latin America, as influential and as famous there as Thomas Jefferson is in the United States. Poet, politician, educator, essayist, philosopher, he wielded astonishing influence and played a major role in shaping the national identities of newly independent Latin American countries. He held several key government positions, authored Chile's civil code, launched several periodicals, wrote prodigiously on a vast array of subjects, and implemented important educational reforms.
Available here in English for the first time, the...