From: The Historian | Date: January 1, 1994| Author: Stevens, Donald Fithian | COPYRIGHT 1994 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

The decades after independence are among the least known areas of Spanish-American history. John Lynch, a veteran of previous expeditions into this territory, has written a study of its indigenous political fauna, the caudillo. Caudillos have been almost mythic figures in Latin American history, so prevalent that they have not suffered from an overly precise taxonomy. Yet we are expected to recognize them when we see them, and they have been sighted nearly everywhere. The caudillos' ...