Spanish American republics were founded in defiance of the model of one language/one culture/one nation-state model that came to dominate European nationalism. Initially, many of the independence leaders hoped – faute de mieux – that the heady forces of liberty and sovereignty would suffice to sweep away the obstacles (racial, regional, economic) to create the modern political communities that they fully expected to become far superior to monarchical, slave-owning, imperialist Europe. But when it rapidly became evident that the implementation of liberal values tended to bring about illiberal outcomes, the importance of imagining some kind of cultural community increased correspondingly. From the 1830s onwards, the conditions of the present seemed to be so dire that they diminished nation-builders' confidence in the future and exacerbated their need for a past. As Rebecca Earle emphasises, history – an important element in all nationalisms – thus came to play a far greater part in nineteenth-century Spanish American nationalisms than might have been expected at the outset, given the future-oriented impetus of their outlook. Her fascinating study of the search of creole elites for a useable past, in particular their changing and diverse views about the place of the pre-Columbian past in national histories, is a major contribution to the historiography of Spanish American nationalism.

The Return of the Native is remarkable for its scope in several respects: its chronological coverage, which runs from the wars of independence to the 1920s; its range of case studies: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, plus a good sprinkling of other examples; and its diversity of sources, including both official and intellectual products: from coins to cartography; postage stamps of Indian princesses to accounts of días de la patria; and from histories and literature to museums and constitutions. This extensive sifting of libraries and archives has yielded rich pickings, not least in the 24 illustrations that illuminate the text. The 50-page bibliography is both a testament to ambitious scholarship and a valuable tool in itself.

Earle uses the term ‘Indian’ advisedly; her aim is precisely to explore the meanings attached to the indigenous peoples by creoles. The story she tells begins with what she calls ‘indianesque nationalism’, namely the prevalence of pre-Columbian images during the independence era: many references across the region to Indians as ‘our fathers’; claims that the wars were carried out to avenge the destruction of the great native civilisations by the brutal and ignorant Spaniards; glorifications of Aztecs, Incas and Araucanians in literature, theatre and festivals of independence. As she notes, none of this was indicative of an inclusive approach to the imagined community: it was during this period that the ‘double discourse’ on the indigenous – glorious past, ignominious present – became embedded in the process of nation-building. Within a couple of decades, indianesque images had largely been displaced by a cult of the independence wars as the crucible of nationhood, the moment of origin. Yet the Indian did not entirely fade from view: there was an incorporation of an idealised pre-Columbian past into patriotic history, entailing separation of the present indigenous peoples not only from the national past but from their own past, as creoles represented themselves as heirs to the greatness of pre-conquest civilisations and the ‘Indian Problem’ was agonised over as an explanation for Spanish America's failure to live up to its founding values. It was not until the twentieth century, mainly after the Mexican Revolution, that indigenismo and mestizaje came to the fore in attempts to bridge the gap between idealised historical Indians and disparaged contemporary indigenous people. Earle has uncovered the history behind the tensions and contradictions besetting those twentieth-century challenges to the privileging of racial purity.

For the most part, the big picture is convincing, although when such a large canvas is being covered there are bound to be a few areas that strike the observer as somewhat sketchily drawn. For example, I would have liked more explicit engagement with the wider intellectual history of the region. How, and to what extent, were the developments Earle traces in relation to views of the Indians and the pre-conquest past affected by the impact of Romanticism, or positivism, both of which were adapted and appropriated in very particular ways in different Spanish American contexts? There is no mention of the Arielismo that was dominant among intellectuals for over three decades; of course, Rodó – notoriously – did not include the indigenous people, or even the Indian, in his vision of Latin America's future, but surely the enthusiasm with which young intellectuals embraced his vision of an alternative antiquity (Latin Americans as the direct heirs of the virtues of classical Greek and Rome by way of Spain) speaks volumes about the half-heartedness of many earlier creole attempts to jouer à l'autochthone. It would have been impossible to cover all this material in detail, but the overall argument would have been enriched by more indications of absences, more mapping out of the complexities of what ‘Spanish’ identity could mean (conservative, Catholic and castizo to some; to others, however, liberal, republican and pioneering in their openness to all cultures), more attention to attempts to imagine alternatives (cosmopolitan or criollista). Earle argues that, after 1830, ‘nationalist genealogies largely abandoned the tentative identification with the preconquest past […] in favor of a revindicated Spanish identity’; it is at least arguable that Spanish identity is only revindicated after 1898, in the context of the rising Anglo-Saxon threat. As much of her own evidence shows (for example, in Chapter Three), many mid-nineteenth century Spanish American intellectuals were highly critical of Spain and what they saw as the Spanish heritage; their reluctant acceptance of connection to colonial past derived from a (Romantic) view of history as the source of explanation for current problems.

Overall, however, the achievements of this book are substantial and impressive. Earle effectively refutes the claims that have repeatedly been made for Mexican exceptionalism, illustrating the extent to which creoles across the region found it difficult to construct a useable past without recourse to the pre-conquest era, because it was the only plausible source of antiquity and authenticity. She also presents a wealth of evidence that, from the outset, rather than from later in the nineteenth century as has previously been claimed, states deployed emblems, symbols, ceremonies and practices such as place-naming in attempts to create a sense of nationhood that would almost certainly have touched many people's lives. Her broad comparative perspective works as she hoped, to illuminate many aspects of the particular while allowing the reader to see the broader picture and to appreciate the extent to which creoles across the region shared and promoted a common culture. This is a book that will stimulate new questions and debates among all historians of nineteenth century Spanish America.