Antonio Guzmán Blanco (1829-1899) was a Venezuelan political leader who effectively dominated his country from 1870 to 1889. This period saw the first truly national government of Venezuela and a great surge of economic activity and material progress.

Antonio Guzmán Blanco was born to an aristocratic family in Caracas. His father, Antonio Leocadio Guzmán, was a leading Venezuelan intellectual, editor, and Liberal party spokesman. Young Antonio, very well educated in both law and medicine, saw that Venezuela's intermittent civil wars and revolutions were retarding its progress.

In 1859, a year after the ouster of dictator José Tadeo Monagas, Venezuela was again torn by civil strife--the Federalist War--and Guzmán Blanco joined the federalists, first as secretary and finally as virtual partner of federalist chief Gen. Juan Falcón. In 1863 Guzmán Blanco entered Caracas in triumph at the head of his...