The Wrath of God: Lope de Aguirre, Revolutionary of the Americas

摘要

Lope de Aguirre has been almost universally reviled as one of the most evil figures of the sixteenth century, familiar from his portrayal, albeit fictional, in Werner Herzog's 1972 film Aguirre, Wratb of God. Yet suppose that this story, largely derived from the accounts of chroniclers with an axe to grind, was wholly inaccurate. Suppose that this Basque adventurer should really be viewed as an early rebel against the Spanish crown, who might more deservedly have received the encomiums granted to later liberators such as Simon Bolivar. This is the delightful revisionist interpretation that Evan Balkan, a US historian, now presents for our delectation, building on the imaginative recreations of several Latin American novelists. Aguirre's only bar to historical renown, in Balkan's version of his tale, lay in his lack of success. This is a version of the story pioneered (in English) by Bart Lewis in his book The Miraculous Lie: Lope de Aguirre and the Search for El Dorado in the Latin American Historical Novel (Lexington Books, 2003), but Balkan is more concerned with actual history than with the subsequent fictional accounts.