Natalia Sobrevilla’s Armed Citizens and Citizens in Arms is a welcome and substantial contribution to the ‘bellicist turn’ in the history and social sciences of Latin America – a growing body of scholarship that reconsiders the formative role of war and organised violence in shaping the state. This reorientation is particularly significant in a region where state capacity remains closely tied to questions of development. Sobrevilla’s study, while firmly grounded in nineteenth-century Peru, reaches well beyond a narrowly historiographical intervention. It engages a broad comparative literature and speaks directly to larger debates about state formation, militarisation and institutional development. And yet, its primary strength lies in its contribution to the early history of the Peruvian military, becoming an instant classic on this topic.
One of the book’s most impressive features is its empirical depth. Drawing on more than 1,000 military case files from individuals who served in the Peruvian army between 1800 and 1870 – materials the author has worked with over the course of two decades – Sobrevilla demonstrates a remarkable command of archival sources. This long engagement yields a granular reconstruction of life in and around the military, enabling her to move beyond institutional narratives and into the lived experiences of soldiers and their families, and how the military related to the state more broadly.
The book is structured as a chronological and thematic journey. It begins with the origins of militias during the colonial period, before moving into a detailed examination of recruitment, promotion, healthcare, retirement and pensions for family members during the first five decades of independent Peru. Particularly notable are the chapters devoted to provisions for incapacitated soldiers and to retirement and family impacts, including widows’ pensions. These sections highlight an often-overlooked dimension of state formation: the emergence of welfare-like mechanisms tied to military service – one that historians sometimes overlook and leave to sociologists. By engaging these themes comprehensively, Sobrevilla successfully produces a historical-sociological oeuvre of the highest calibre, shedding light on the relationship between war, health and social policy, revealing how the demands of conflict compelled the state to develop administrative practices such as pension management, compensation systems and record-keeping, which required increasing levels of organisation and oversight.
These findings resonate with and extend the work of some of the greatest voices in historical sociology, such as Theda Skocpol, who has explored similar dynamics in the context of the American Civil War, as well as previous work on European state formation. Sobrevilla demonstrates that such processes were equally present in Latin America, even if they had been less systematically documented – until now.
Another central strength of the book lies in its contextualisation of the armed forces within broader processes of war and state formation. Earlier scholarship on Peru has sometimes minimised the significance of the wars of independence, attributing subsequent institutional weakness to internal military conflict. Sobrevilla challenges this view by arguing that such contradictions were not anomalies but intrinsic to the process of building a modern state. As in Europe, state formation in Peru was propelled by a turbulent mix of wars and internal revolts. Rather than undermining the state, these dynamics were constitutive of it. Her analysis is particularly effective in this regard. By emphasising the fluid boundaries between regular troops, National Guards and citizen militias, Sobrevilla places Peru within a broader pattern of mass mobilisation in the nineteenth century and recalls the work of Tulio Halperin Donghi on the Río de la Plata. Like Halperin Donghi’s seminal study of Argentina, Sobrevilla’s book reveals that the levels of militarisation have often been underestimated.
Of course, the close integration of military and state is further underscored by the fact that Peru’s presidents between 1821 and 1871 were overwhelmingly drawn from the armed forces, with civilian political movements such as civilismo emerging only later as agents of reform. In this sense, Sobrevilla convincingly portrays the existence of a fiscal-military state that, although less institutionalised than its European counterpart, revealed its military core in its daily practices. For example, the book shows the role of military status and institutionalisation in state-building. Military privileges, such as fueros (special legal jurisdictions), and the gradual professionalisation of the armed forces through promotion systems and career structures are shown to be central to the emergence of a modern bureaucratic state. These elements emphasise the extent to which military service functioned not only as a mechanism of coercion, or as a tool to be mobilised by the whim of patrimonialist caudillos, but also as a pathway to social mobility and recognition.
If one could ask Sobrevilla to explore some themes more – perhaps in follow-up research – the reader is left wondering to what extent Peru’s unique experience during the independence period might have affected some of the dynamics covered by the author. The coexistence of royalist and revolutionary armies – often composed of Peruvians on both sides – created a distinctive context that may have had lasting effects on military cohesion and factionalism. While Sobrevilla acknowledges these complexities, they are not fully developed analytically. A more sustained comparison with other regions of Spanish America, where independence struggles may have led to more cohesive mobilisation on the revolutionary side, could enrich the argument and reveal some interesting patterns.
Similarly, the book opens but does not fully pursue questions about the differential impact of external wars versus internal conflicts. Given Peru’s wealth in the nineteenth century and its inheritance of substantial colonial infrastructure, further exploration of how international wars – such as the Great Colombia–Peru War (1828–9), the War of the Confederation (1836–9) and Chincha Islands War (1864–6) – shaped military and state development in this period – alongside or in contrast to civil wars – would be a valuable avenue for future research.
Overall, Armed Citizens and Citizens in Arms is a rigorous, deeply researched and theoretically engaged work that significantly advances our understanding of the relationship between war and state formation in Latin America. Its combination of archival richness and analytical clarity ensures that it will remain an essential reference not only for historians of Peru but also for scholars interested in the broader dynamics of state-building in the modern world. Sobrevilla has won herself a top spot on our bookshelves with this fascinating work, alongside historians like Halperin Donghi and sociologists/political scientists like Skocpol.
