While some aspects of the material world occur naturally, many are affected by various processes of production. Making, craft, industry, and work are all categories important for understanding the formation and alteration of much of the human-made and shaped world. The author focuses on animating objects in the Caribbean, Central, and South America, and undertakes comparisons with the Western tradition.

Chapter 4 considers a debate between two Argentine political thinkers of the period of national organization that followed the end of the wars of independence in Latin America: Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) and Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810-1884). Both of them endorsed liberal republicanism, a set of doctrines of moral and political philosophy that opposed Bolivarism and which was widely popular in the region during the post-independence period. The chapter demonstrates that Sarmiento and Alberdi had in common a general philosophical framework, even when they perceived their views as incompatible with each other's. Key shared doctrines included the infamous civilization/barbarism dichotomy and the no-less-infamous European-transplantation model of Latin American identity. This chapter argues that since Sarmiento and Alberdi had these substantive doctrines in common in matters concerning race and liberal democracy (judged to be the best form of polity for the new Latin American nations), their differences were almost trivial. Both of them disagreed with Bolívar, who acknowledged Latin America’s ethnic and racial diversity but remained skeptical about the suitability of liberal democracy in the region.

The Americas constitute one of the most topographically diverse and environmentally heterogeneous regions of the world, and each of these dimensions, and a host of social, economic, political, and cultural variables, necessarily serve to define the nature of war and society in the American hemisphere. In the two centuries anticipating Columbian contact with the New World in 1492, the Americas were largely dominated by the rise and fall of hundreds of kingdoms and warring polities, and the emergence of two powerful, albeit militaristically distinctive, imperial traditions – one Mesoamerican, the other Peruvian. Each evolved from a pattern of military statecraft and conquest interaction that coalesced in the highlands of each region in the period extending from 1300 to 1500 ce. While the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia were the crucibles of a centuries-old tradition of empire building, questions regarding the extent to which Mesoamerican empires fully and completely consolidated their gains as hegemonic imperial formations remain.

This chapter presents several arguments concerning native and European colonial violence focusing on its ritual forms. Firstly, while Amerindian cannibalism and human sacrifice – particularly suited to the justification of conquest and colonial domination – were strongly reproached by the Europeans, some of their own behaviours resembled these practices more than they would admit. Secondly, while colonial discourse tended to construct a relatively homogeneous colonial ‘other’, native ritual violence differed considerably between and among the stratified and the egalitarian indigenous societies, that is, those without institutionalised forms of inequality beyond age and gender differences. Thirdly, Amerindians were differently affected by European conquest and colonial rule depending, among other things, on their form of political organisation. Fourthly, native and European (ritual) violent practices influenced each other to a certain extent. Finally, while Europeans condemned native ritual violence such as human sacrifice or the treatment of war captives as barbaric, their dealings with people considered inimical to the secular and godly order were by no means more humane. Given the umpteen variety of Amerindian cultures and colonial encounters, only some general trends and a few empirical examples can be discussed.