Simón Bolívar and the Seeds of Social Liberty

With this book, Alejandro Castrillón uncovers a strikingly original strand of liberal thought in the political projects of Simón Bolívar, showing how his constitutional experiments offer an overlooked but vital alternative for reimagining liberalism in a moment of global uncertainty.

Through a close reading of Bolívar’s mature political thought and his collaboration with Simón Rodríguez, Castrillón reveals the emergence of social liberty: a model of liberalism grounded not only in rights and institutional checks but also in civic formation, mutual obligation, and social cohesion. By examining Bolívar’s constitutional experiments in 1819 and 1826, he demonstrates how Bolívar adapted, reworked, and at times resisted European thinkers such as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Constant to confront the challenges of post‑colonial Spanish America. What readers will discover is a reinterpretation of Bolívar as a theorist of social liberty; a reassessment of Latin American constitutional innovation beyond U.S. and British templates; and a fresh conceptual framework for rethinking liberalism’s moral and social foundations in an age of fragmentation.

Simón Bolívar and the Seeds of Social Liberty is written for scholars of political theory, Latin American intellectual history, constitutional studies, and comparative political thought, as well as readers seeking alternative liberal trajectories that shed light on contemporary debates.