Colombia is too often depicted as a drug-ridden society, riven by guerrilla and paramilitary violence, bereft of effective political leadership and mired in traditions that hinder national development. These images permeate popular literature, with films and books echoing drug violence and the militarisation of society under the tutelage of the US-funded Plan Colombia. Michael LaRosa and Germán Mejía readily acknowledge that these ills have plagued the country, but insist that they do not define it. Nor do the authors agree completely with the image of Colombia in the dominant historical literature. They argue that the texts by David Bushnell, Marcos Palacios and Frank Safford offer political, social and economic chronologies largely based upon colonial and nineteenth-century patterns that should be supplemented by more recent historical processes. In Colombia: A Concise Contemporary History, the authors present a thematic history of ‘a Colombia that endures’. Their hope is not to ‘whitewash’ the country's history, but to ‘stress those enduring institutions, cultural mechanisms, and economic institutions that have sustained the nation over the decades’ (p. xx). By this approach, they seek to ‘liberate’ the country from ascribed patterns that deny it the opportunity for dynamic growth.

Colombia is divided into ten chapters, each of which develops a unifying theme. Chapters often cover the nearly 200 years since independence, lending a sweeping synthetic character to the analysis. This thematic approach frequently considers events such as the separation of Panama or the 1928 banana ‘massacre’ from distinct perspectives, highlighting their importance in the development of Colombian identity. While valuable, this method at times splinters sustained exploration of specific topics, notably the Constitution of 1991, a critical moment in the authors' reconsideration of the country's history. A photographic essay and a chronology of political, economic, social, cultural and scientific processes complement the textual analysis.

State formation accounts for much of the country's sense of unity. The opening chapter lays the foundation for this analysis in a detailed account of the political and military events of the independence era. The authors stress the electoral process set in motion by the various cabildos abiertos in different regions of the country. Control of the government in Bogotá introduced tensions between federalism and centralism that would lead to multiple conflicts over the course of the nineteenth century, but which would generate affinity in a shared republican political culture. The framework of Colombia's political culture is described in chapters 3 and 4, and consists of a generally expanding electorate, the formulation of two national political parties in the 1840s and a regularised electoral cycle that legitimated the emerging Colombian state. Unfortunately, the Conservative and Liberal parties favoured monopoly control of the reins of political power, leading to a series of partisan conflicts. Each victory tended to produce a new constitution that incorporated the policies of one or the other parties, which deepened partisan divisions. Still, the party system legitimated the framework of the Colombian state, sustaining a powerful system of clientelism that bound personal identity within the emerging state.

LaRosa and Mejía include Roman Catholicism, the Spanish language, and an administrative network that linked municipalities and the government in Bogotá as unifying factors in Colombian identity. Though the Catholicism of most Colombians was never in doubt, the proper relationship between Church and state sparked violent conflicts, resolved only by the Constitution of 1886 that secured the intimate role of the Church in state policies. This centralising tendency manifested itself in educational policy, by which students learned of their shared identity through mandatory geographical and literature lessons. Municipal/state relations and the regularised electoral cycle helped to reinforce this imagined Colombian community. Telegraph lines, a national radio station and national television proved especially effective as state-sponsored communication networks that reinforced national unity. So too did the Colombian fascination with telenovelas.

The authors are perhaps less successful in portraying a sense of national culture than in state-linked sources of unity, though their coverage of Colombian cultural expressions is refreshing. LaRosa and Mejía present brief synopses of the work of the artistic elite, including Débora Arango, Luis Caballero, Fernando Botero and Tómas Carrasquilla. A quick overview of Colombian music highlights the Afro-Colombian cumbia, the vallenato of the northern coast, the joropo of the Colombian plains, and the bambuco, perhaps the most nationalist musical tradition. Football engages the national attention, but so too do the cycling successes of Naro Quintana and others in the Tour de France. Less well known outside the country is the popular sport of tejo, the pilgrimage to the peak of Monserrate in Bogotá, the ‘Carnival of Blacks and Whites’ in Pasto, or the ciclovía that closes some main streets of the capital to vehicular traffic on Sundays, turning the thoroughfares into ‘open parks’.

The narcotraficante and guerrilla crisis of the last decades of the twentieth century overshadowed fundamental social and political changes in the country. Colombia had become an urban country (74 per cent in 2005), comprised of communities that absorbed thousands of displaced people. The Constitution of 1991 recognised racial and cultural diversity in its clear expression of basic rights and new definitions of ‘nations’, of importance especially to the Afro-Colombian community, which has traditionally been overshadowed by the mestizo/white majority. Partisan affiliations have lessened considerably, in part because of the alienation of political violence and state ineptitude, and also because of politicians such as Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002–10) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010–present), who appealed to the nation rather than a party. The Constitution of 1991 serves as a symbolic point of departure for LaRosa and Mejía, perhaps one that will rival the earlier 1886 code in defining the nation.

This book succeeds in offering a distinct interpretation of Colombian history, one which conveys the complexities of a nation that falls outside so many Latin American ‘norms’. It is written with care, insight and deep affection. For readers unfamiliar with the country, it offers accessible and engaging insights. For others, it is a worthy companion to Bushnell, Palacios, Safford and other authors.