Those natures which, when they meet, quickly lay hold on and mutually affect one another we call affined. This affinity is sufficiently striking in the case of alkalis and acids which, although they are mutually antithetical … most decidedly seek and embrace one another, modify one another, and together form a new substance … It is in just this way that truly meaningful friendships can arise among human beings: for antithetical qualities make possible a closer and more intimate union.

Goethe, Elective affinities (1809)

A linear mode of historical understanding relegated alchemy to a ‘pre-scientific’ era, with the enlightenment's New Chemistry creating a break between ‘empirical’ and ‘scientific’ metallurgies. Similarly, Bolivia's early Republican silver-production has been regarded as ‘stagnant’ and ‘colonial’ from the ‘modern’ perspective of late nineteenth century liberalism. This article questions both periodisations by documenting an ‘alchemical renaissance’ in Bolivian silver-refining methods during the first part of the 19th century. The relaunch of Alonso Barba's ‘hot method’ of amalgamation in copper cauldrons (1609), and its associated technical discourses, expressed a creole desire for an independent ‘modernity’. This rediscovery of a seventeenth century technology, carried out shortly before the Independence War in the Potosí provinces (Chichas), and slightly later in Oruro and Carangas, is distinguished from the version reinvented in Central Europe by Ignaz von Born (1786), as well as from two pre-Bornian experiments in Potosí and New Spain. Its nineteenth century consolidation was, in part, a little-known reaction to Nordenflicht's failure to introduce the new European method of rotating barrels to the Andes during the 1790s. The article shows that this ‘alchemy of modernity’ held its ground for several decades, suggesting a fresh approach to America's postcolonial ambiguities from the perspective of a comparative history of technology.

This article provides an analysis of royalist strategy in the viceroyalty of Peru during the four years between the arrival of José de San Martín's invasion force in September 1820 and the battle of Ayacucho of December 1824. It pays particular attention to royalist policy from July 1821, when viceroy José de la Serna evacuated Lima, the viceregal capital, leaving the city open to San Martín, who declared independence there on 28 July. Its focus differs, therefore, from that of most previous commentators on Peru's transition to independence, who have tended to neglect royalist policy and activity during these crucial final years in favour of a concentration upon the activities of San Martín, Antonio José de Sucre, Simón Bolívar and their Peruvian allies. The article begins with a brief contextual discussion of the historiography of Peruvian independence and subsequently analyses the main features of historical developments in the viceroyalty in the period 1810–20. Following substantive discussion of the period 1820–4, it concludes with observations on the historical legacy in Peru of the royalists' elevation of the city of Cusco to the status of viceregal capital in 1822–4.

This article examines the way in which politics amongst the indigenous population became nationalised between the years 1826 and 1921. The problem of land ownership is presented as the catalyst of a process of public action and apprenticeship combining rebellions, legal battles and patronage agreements. The joint analysis of these actions allows, first, the refutation of the image of the Indians as pre-political, passive, incomprehensible and alien to all that was Western; second, to emphasise the important effect the national discourse had on the response of the Indians; and, third, to show the indigenous interest in taking part in the prevailing national project.

Two of the most striking aspects of social change in recent decades in Latin America have been the rise of indigenist movements and the spread of evangelical Protestantism. To date they have been analysed separately, but this article shows that a comparison of the two in the context of Bolivia can prove highly productive. Although in many respects evangelismo and katarismo are diametrically opposed, there are some striking similarities. They draw their adherents from the same social base, undermine the notion of a homogeneous nation-state and also clearly reject the position of cultural mestizaje at the root of Bolivian state ideology. Thus, at a time when ‘hybridised’ cultural forms are supposed to be becoming more common in Latin America and around the world, these two social movements explicitly contest hybridity.

One of the most persistent and influential concepts in Andean studies during the last few decades has been that of dualism at different levels of Andean cultural and sociopolitical life. How dualism works and the manner in which it has evolved have been the subject of much debate. Within this context, Jesús de Machaqa in highland Bolivia has been recognised as a region of primary importance for investigation, because of its enduring socio-political structures. However, a study of its ‘traditional’ structure carried out in the 1970s showed that important changes had taken place. New studies of intra-communal structures and recent studies of Aymara spatial organisation, together with information held in colonial documents and oral traditions help to shed more light on the question of dualism. Drawing on all these sources, this article aims to contribute to wider debate by examining key aspects of the ‘traditional’ structure and setting out some of the methodological problems faced by those who seek to reconstruct the past of indigenous communities, in particular problems related to the combined use of colonial documents and oral traditions.

This article offers an interpretation of the crisis of the Bolivian Left in the mid-1980s, perhaps the most spectacular of all those suffered by the Latin American Left over the course of the decade. The author shows that the main distinguishing feature of the Bolivian case was the exceptional political power of the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB). It was this that enabled the union federation first to impose a highly expansive wage policy on the Unión Democrática y Popular (UDP) government, and then to veto its attempts to move towards a more realistic financial policy. The author goes on to argue that, in this second period, when the undesired consequences of the government's economic policy were sufficiently obvious to persuade the union to change its original strategies, the institutional structure that the COB had inherited from the past restricted and ultimately eliminated the union's strategic capacity. In this interpretation, the power of the union vis-à-vis a weak government, coupled with the union's own weakness as a corporate actor, gave rise to an accelerated process of institutional decline under the UDP government. This process was marked by the increasing prevalence of particularist and partial rationalities over the collective rationality, taking Bolivia to a Hobbesian situation, in which any actor capable of imposing a new order – however authoritarian or exclusive – would enjoy widespread support and legitimacy.

In this article the author compares recent efforts in Bolivia and Colombia to implement constitutionally mandated regimes of legal pluralism, and identifies the most important factors affecting the practical realisation of legal pluralism: the capacity of the political system, the legal tradition and society to tolerate normative diversity; the geographic isolation and cultural alienation of indigenous communities; the degree of internal division within indigenous communities and movements regarding legal pluralism in general, and in specific cases, that have arisen, and the availability of effective legal mechanisms to indigenous communities seeking to protect this right.

British business in Latin America struggled throughout the inter-war period, affected by the First World War, aggressive US trade strategies and a dated British commercial support structure that had turned its attentions to imperial markets. Chamber of Commerce archive material reveals the frustrations of the British business community in Chile as hard-won markets were lost to well-supported US firms and returning German competition, as a consequence of weak political, financial and marketing support. Against a backdrop of British commercial decline worldwide, the Chilean case echoes the experiences of businessmen across Latin America's non-imperial markets. As the British government dallied, US business established an unassailable position.