Bringing War Back In provides a fresh theory connecting war and state formation that incorporates the contingency of warfare and the effects of war outcomes in the long run. The book demonstrates that international wars in nineteenth-century Latin America triggered state-building, that the outcomes of those wars affected the legitimacy and continuity of such efforts, and that the relative capacity of states in this region today continues to reflect those distant processes. Combining comparative historical analysis with cutting edge social science methods, the book provides a comprehensive picture of state formation in nineteenth-century Latin America that is compelling for readers across disciplines, breathes new life into bellicist approaches to state formation, and offers a novel framework to explain variation in state capacity across Latin America and the world.

Winner, 2025 Hedley Bull Prize for Best Book in International Relations, European Consortium for Political Research

Honorable Mention, 2025 Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize for Best Book in Public Administration, International Political Science Association

Short-listed, 2025 Luebbert Award for Best Book in Comparative Politics, American Political Science Association

‘The disillusionment with democracy and the incidence of populism in Latin America today is tied to the weakness of state institutions there. This book provides a new and powerful explanation for how the continent ended up like this. The theory has broad implications for the world we are living in today.’

James Robinson - University of Chicago, Nobel Prize in Economics, 2024

‘Hands down the best social science work I have read in some time. Theoretically ambitious and consequential, empirically savvy and persuasive, substantively rich and razor-sharp. A must-read for students of war and state-building and for everyone looking for exemplary social science.’

Stathis Kalyvas - University of Oxford

‘As a scholar of colonialism and development in Latin America, I found the brilliant arguments of Bringing War Back In to be simultaneously challenging, historically enriching, and ultimately convincing. I think this book achieves the highest level of analytic sophistication and methodological rigor. Schenoni has produced nothing short of a modern-day comparative-historical masterpiece.’

James Mahoney - Northwestern University

‘Just when you thought there was little more to say about war and state building, along comes Bringing War Back In. Schenoni has written a truly impressive book that offers a host of insights on that important subject and shows in great deal how war helped make the state in Latin America, a region where one might think that argument does not apply.’

John J. Mearsheimer - University of Chicago

‘This is the most ambitious work on state formation to date. Schenoni’s classical bellicist theory offers a refined universal model where state formation follows the rhythm of victories and defeats. He challenges conventional anti-bellicist views on Latin America, demonstrating that nineteenth-century wars there surpassed contemporary European wars in severity and mobilization, and made those states.’

Victoria Hui - University of Notre Dame

‘This is a deep and brilliant analysis of the role of war in state building, not just in Latin America, but with wider implications for bellicist theory. Schenoni’s focus on outcomes is a great innovation and provides critical insights into the links between military and political development. A very important and timely contribution.’

Miguel Centeno - Princeton University, author of Blood and Debt

‘Building on Tilly’s work on war and state-building in Europe, and Centeno’s application to Latin America, Schenoni draws on his mastery of comparative sociological analysis to examine how war outcomes shaped state formation in the region. Schenoni’s study adds a valuable chapter to our knowledge of these dynamics in the modern world. His immense knowledge of Latin American history alone makes this a wonderful read.’

Sidney Tarrow - Cornell University, co-author of Contentious Politics (with Charles Tilly)

‘Schenoni’s book is outstanding. Against most of the conventional wisdom, he shows that Latin America had many wars and often highly violent and consequential ones in the 19th century. Schenoni refines Tilly’s classic work by arguing that it is just the victors of intercountry war, not the losers, who embark on successful state building. The book is an exemplary model of multi-methods research.’

Scott Mainwaring - University of Notre Dame

‘Schenoni goes beyond Tilly to Hintze and Weber, excavating classical bellicist theory to argue and demonstrate that it’s war victory, not war preparation, that best explains state-building – and not simply because losers go extinct. In his empirical battle to revitalize bellicist theory in Latin America, Schenoni emerges similarly victorious.’

Dan Slater - University of Michigan

‘[A] tour de force in state-building scholarship, a model of multi-methods research, and a love letter to Max Weber.’

Rodrigo Barrenechea Source: Latin American Politics and Society

‘… offers valuable reflections on the implications of the Bellicist account of Latin American state-building for other parts of the world, mainly Europe, thus pointing the way to future research endeavours. In doing so, it underlines its contribution to our understanding of state-making world-wide, on the one hand, and to theorising from the periphery rather than simply supplying a case to the core of the discipline - where theory is developed based on European and North American experience - on the other.’

Nicole Jenne Source: Journal of Latin American Studies

‘Schenoni’s work … offers the reader a journey through literatures from different times and even disciplines to shed light on the impact of war outcomes on state capacity, which will surely influence future work in the field.’

Nicole Jenne Source: Journal of Latin American Studies