Although unimagined and unanticipated within the Creole nationalist ‘discursive frameworks’ of the liberal-republican state, nineteenth-century Andean peasant communities sought mediated re-insertion in the postcolonial Peruvian Republic. Key to peasant political engagement in the Andean region of Huaylas-Ancash was the tactical deployment of ‘Indian rights’ of colonial origin to make moral and material claims on the postcolonial caudillo state. In Huaylas-Ancash peasant claims and political practices destabilised liberal notions of ‘republic’ and ‘republican’ citizenship, and eventually challenged the teleogical historicity of Creole nation-building itself.

The inauguration of electric streetcar service by two foreign-owned companies in Montevideo in 1906 set off an intense debate between the city's elite and its anarchist workers over the nature of progress. The streetcar became a contested symbol of modernity as the elite attempted to dictate the terms of a new urban order. Anarchists countered with an alternative vision of progress that emphasised social equality, education and liberty, and they competed for the sympathy of the middle class which grew increasingly ambivalent towards the streetcar. Trolley workers resisted a new system of discipline at the workplace and eventually led the city's first general strike, with broad public support.

This paper examines the relationship of the Rio de Janeiro Tramway, Light and Power Company and the municipal council in the provision of streetcar services in Rio de Janeiro, 1903–1920. Using archival materials collected in Brazil and Canada, it demonstrates that the utilities company lost the contest for control of Rio de Janeiro's mass transit system to the municipal authorities. Although it had the advantages of capital, technology and skill, this Canadian enterprise did not dictate its demands to an acquiescent municipal council. Rather, the municipal council and prefecture managed to extract an expensive streetcar system from the company to service its growing city.

This article locates the first regime of Alfonso López Pumarejo (the Revolutión en marcha, 1934–8) within the social dynamics of Colombia's polarised party system, rather than the developmentalist and class dynamics that are frequently invoked. López's economic and political thought is shown to be far closer to the partisan and antistatist traditions of Colombian liberalism than is often assumed, and his rise to power is depicted as a victory of political strategy rather than class alliances. After surveying the role of the Acción Liberal group of intellectuals in the radicalisation of Liberal discourse, culminating in the constitutional reform of 1936, the article offers hypotheses about the transitory nature of López-era Liberal radicalism.

This article examines the history and ideology of the Communist Party of Peru-Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso). The rebels claim to embody a distinctively Peruvian Marxism. However, a close examination of the party betrays a conspicuous indifference to Peruvian culture and traditions. The distinctiveness of this largest and most diverse of the Andean nations disappears in the orthodoxy of a universal Marxism, in this respect placing the Shining Path within the long legacy of the imperial inscription of Latin American history into the preconceived categories and linear narratives of Western philosophy and science.

This article explores the relationship between civil-military relations and political change. Transitions to democracy in Latin America have led scholars to focus attention on the legacy of military rule and those efforts aimed at securing democratic control of the military. The article examines the foundations of civilian supremacy in Mexico, established within the context of a hegemonic party system. Changes brought about in the civil-military balance as a result of shifts in the division of labour between civilians and soldiers, as well as the impact of political liberalisation, are also analysed. Drawing on the experience of other transitions to democracy, the article discusses some of the issues raised by the dismantling of hegemonic rule for civil-military relations in Mexico.

This interdisciplinary study approximates the Columbian interpretation of the Taí nos – filtered and re-interpreted by the Dominican people, through their museums. Cultural phenomena such as vomitic spatulas, ‘talking’ idols, hallucinogens, infant cranial deformation, dances, nudity, sexual customs, punishments, and live burial produced Columbus's tendency to denounce the Taínos in his writings. These texts are displayed in the Museo del Hombre Dominicano side-by-side with anthropological exhibitions. Together, these texts and artifacts become purveyors of an ideology, one which Dominicans use to challenge the Eurocentric, romanticising, Noble Savage approach propagated during the Quincentennial.