1. Republics of the possible: state building in Latin America and Spain Miguel Centeno and Agustin Ferraro; 2. The construction of national states, 1820-90: five cases, multiple variables Frank Safford; 3. State building in Western Europe and the Americas before and in the long nineteenth century: some preliminary considerations Wolfgang Knoebl; 4. The state and development under the Brazilian monarchy: 1822-89 Jeffrey Needell; 5. The Brazilian federal state in the old republic (1889-1930): did regime change make a difference? Joseph E. Love; 6. The Mexican state, Porfirian and revolutionary (1876-1930) Alan Knight; 7. Nicaragua: the difficult creation of a sovereign state Salvador Martí; 8. Friends' tax. Patronage, fiscality and state building in Argentina and Spain Claudia Herrera and Agustin Ferraro; 9. Ideological pragmatism and non-partisan expertise in nineteenth-century Chile: Andrés Bello's contribution to state and nation building Iván Jaksic; 10. Militarization without bureaucratization in Central America James Mahoney; 11. Between 'Empleomanía' and the common good: successful expert bureaucracies in Argentina (1870-1930) Ricardo Salvatore; 12. Elite preferences, administrative institutions, and educational development during Peru's Aristocratic Republic (1895-1919) Hillel Soifer; 13. Liberalism in the Iberian world 1808-25 Roberto Breña; 14. Visions of the national: natural endowments, futures, and the evils of men Fernando López-Alves; 15. Spanish national identity in the age of nationalisms José Alvarez Junco; 16. Census taking and nation making in nineteenth-century Latin America Mara Loveman; 17. Citizens before the law: the role of courts in post-independence state building in Spanish America Sara Chambers; 18. Visualizing the nation: the mid-nineteenth-century Colombian chorographic commission Nancy Applebaum; 19. Paper leviathans. Historical legacies and state strength in contemporary Latin America and Spain Miguel Centeno and Agustin Ferraro.