The literature potentially relevant to this topic is vast, but sprawling and unmanageable. Oscar Oszlak, ‘The historical formation of the state in Latin America’, LARR, 16/2 (1981), 3–32, is a useful start, but deals only with the nineteenth century, as does his monograph, La formatión del estado argentino (Buenos Aires, 1990). The same is true of José Murilo de Carvalho, ‘Political elites and state-building: The case of nineteenth-century Brazil’, CSSH, 24 (1982), 378–99, and Fernando Uríoechea, The Patrimonial Foundations of the Brazilian Bureaucratic State (Berkeley, 1980). The main arguments of Claudio Véliz, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America (Princeton, N.J., 1980) remain unpersuasive. Tulio Halperín-Donghi, The Aftermath of Revolution in Latin America (New York, 1973) is a useful antidote. See also Horst Pietschmann, El estado y su evolución al principio de la colonización espanola de América (Mexico, D.F., 1989); A. Annino et al., America Latina: Dello stato coloniale allo stato nazione (1750–1940), 2 vols. (Milan, 1987); Oscar Oszlak, Ensayos sobre la formacion histórica del estado en América Latina (San José, C.R., 1981); and Arnaldo Córdova, ‘Los orígenes del Estado en América Latina’, Cuaderno 32, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico, D.F., 1977). For paired comparisons of nineteenth-century Latin American state-building, see Hélgio Trindade, ‘A construção do estado nacional na Argentina e no Brasil (1810–1900): Esboço de uma análise comparativa’, Dados, 28/1 (1985); and Fernando Uríoechea, ‘Formação e expansão do estado burocrático – patrimonial na Colombia e no Brasil’, Estudos CEBRAP, 21 (1977. See also Steven Topik, ‘The economic role of the state in Liberal regimes – Brazil and Mexico compared, 1888–1910’, in Joseph L. Love and Nils Jacobsen (eds.), Guiding the Invisible Hand: Economic Liberalism and the State in Latin American History (New York, 1988).