7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

contemporaries thought in terms of individual nation-
states, Bolívar in terms of continents. In the field of
domestic policy, he continued to be an authoritarian
republican. He thought of himself as a rallying point and
anticipated civil war as soon as his words should no longer
be heeded. Such a prophecy, made in 1824, was fulfilled in
1826, when civil war broke out. Bolívar was determined to
preserve the unity of Gran Colombia, but his efforts were
to no avail. Less successful at ruling countries than at lib-
erating them, he exiled himself in 1830 and died of
tuberculosis later that year.

Giuseppe Garibaldi

(b. July 4, 1807, Nice, French Empire [now in France]—d. June 2,
1882, Caprera, Italy)

A

n Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento,
Giuseppe Garibaldi contributed to the achievement
of Italian unification.
Initially, Garibaldi was a sailor. By 1833–34, when he
served in the navy of the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia,
he had come under the influence of the revolutionary
Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1834 Garibaldi took part in a mutiny
intended to provoke a republican revolution in Piedmont,
but the plot failed. He escaped to France and in his absence
was condemned to death by a Genoese court.
From 1836 to 1848, Garibaldi lived in exile in South
America. There he took part in wars, first in Brazil and
then in Uruguay, where he raised and commanded the
Italian Legion. His South American experiences gave him
invaluable training in the techniques of guerrilla warfare,
which he later used with great effect against French and
Austrian armies, not trained in how to counter them.
Revolution and insurrection raged throughout the
Italian peninsula in 1848, and in April Garibaldi returned