Description
Book SynopsisOur understanding of the rise of the nation-state is based heavily on the Western European experience of war. This text challenges the dominance of this model, looking at Latin America's much different experience as more relevant to politics today in regions as varied as the Balkans and Africa.
Trade Review“Blood and Debt is much too rich in concepts and supporting descriptive events to give deserved justice in a brief review. Clearly, it is an outstanding study, destined to be the standard work in the area for some time to come.”
—Robert Looney Journal of Political and Military Sociology
“However, Centeno’s path breaking book will stimulate a wealth of follow-on studies.”
—Robert Looney Journal of Political and Military Sociology
“Miguel Centeno (a sociologist) has taken a hard and detailed look at relationships between war, the military, and the state in Latin America in a most incisive work.”
—Frederick M. Nunn Latin American Research Review
“Meticulously researched, Miguel Centeno’s provocative study presents a comprehensive account of Latin America’s proclivity to go to war over the past 200 years and the consequences of that proclivity. . . . Centeno’s ambitious study will undoubtedly provoke much debate and further research. Its unique perspective and impressive breadth represent an important contribution to Latin American political sociology that will challenge researchers in a variety of specializations for some time to come.”
—Philip Oxhorn American Journal of Sociology
“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
