This essay reviews the following works:
Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Origins of the Military Regimes, 1880–1940. By Erik Ching. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 496. $55.00 paper. ISBN: 9780268023751.
The Rise of Constitutional Government in the Iberian Atlantic World: The Impact of the Cádiz Constitution of 1812. Edited by Scott Eastman and Natalia Sobrevilla Perea. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 320. $64.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780817318567.
Armies, Politics, and Revolution: Chile, 1808–1826. By Juan Luis Ossa Santa Cruz. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 288. ₤75.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781781381328.
The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. By James E. Sanders. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 352. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822357803.