"Amid today's impenetrable postmodern jargon, it is a joy to discover
a sociologist who not only writes good English but who opens up
important questions previously neglected by scholars. . . . Based
on wide historical reading, Centeno has broken much new ground in
this major contribution."—Foreign Affairs
"Centeno's book balances shrewdly between identifying distinctive
properties of Latin American national patterns, on one side, and
integrating Latin American histories into international comparisons,
on the other. Ingeniously piecing together fugitive evidence on
wars, military organization, commemorations, taxation, and state
structure, he thereby challenges two extreme tendencies: to treat
Latin America as a failed Europe, and to stress the utter particularism
of Latin America."—Charles Tilly, Columbia University
"Miguel Angel Centeno's trailblazing book sheds much new light
on Latin America by paying proper attention to its distinctive ways
of making war and the connections of warfare to state development,
to national identities, and to the nature of citizenship."—John
Markoff, University of Pittsburgh
What role does war play in political development? Our understanding
of the rise of the nation-state is based heavily on the Western
European experience of war. Challenging the dominance of this model,
Blood and Debt looks at Latin America's much different experience
as more relevant to politics today in regions as varied as the Balkans
and sub-Saharan Africa.
The book's illuminating review of the relatively peaceful history
of Latin America from the late eighteenth through the early twentieth
centuries reveals the lack of two critical prerequisites needed
for war: a political and military culture oriented toward international
violence and the state institutional capacity to carry it out. Using
innovative new data such as tax receipts, naming of streets and
public monuments, and conscription records, the author carefully
examines how war affected the fiscal development of the state, the
creation of national identity, and claims to citizenship. Rather
than building nation-states and fostering democratic citizenship,
he shows, war in Latin America destroyed institutions, confirmed
internal divisions, and killed many without purpose or glory.
