State-formation
Studies of state-formation and political regime creation in Latin America generally focus on the period following the revolutionary wars. Reference to the colonial era is sometimes presented in such studies, but typically in a summary form. Thomas Ward’s book alerts us to the fact that prior to the arrival of the colonizers there was a large population, divided into distinct nations, and that their earlier and subsequent transformations as nations greatly affected the Spanish process of colonization. Failure on the part of analysts to account for the impact of those nations on the evolution of the Americas during the colonial period has led them to present an incomplete and biased portrayal of the worlds that emerged there. Equally as significant, Ward’s work warns us that by not accounting for the histories and cultures of the inhabitants of the Americas during the precolonial period, we are marginalizing and dehumanizing them.