Natalia Sobrevilla Perea
2026-2027
Francois Chevalier
Instituto Riva Agüero, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Designing Constitutions Amidst Conflict in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Latin America
Natalia Sobrevilla Perea obtained her PhD at the University of London in 2005, her first degree was in History at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She has published more than a dozen books on independence and the nineteenth century. She has been a visiting fellow at Yale University, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Freire Universität in Berlin and held grants from the British Academy, the British Library, the Leverhulme Trust and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Between 2015 and 2018 she led an International Network of scholars researching on the idea of nation and the wars of independence. She has collaborated with the creation of the research repository of the Museum of Memory in Lima, Perú and carried out digitalization projects funded by the British Libraries to preserve nineteenth century newspapers in several provinces in Peru and sections of the Agrarian Archive. She is part of the campaign in defense of the Peruvian National Archive. For seventeen years (2007-2024) she was Professor of Latin American History at the University of Kent and is currently a researcher at the Instituto Riva Agüero. In the fall of 2026, she will be a fellow at the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame.
The civil wars that ravaged Latin America at mid-century—ranging from the War of the Reform in Mexico to the overthrow of Juan Manuel de Rosas in the Río de la Plata, as well as conflicts in New Granada and Peru—paved the way for new constitutional arrangements aimed at establishing more democratic institutions. However, a conservative backlash ensued, and the conflict persisted. This project compares these upheavals in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, focusing on their causes, progression, and consequences. The goal is to identify patterns that shed light on how democratic institutions evolved and how this process shaped the region's development. I argue that, while the political structures existing or being established at the time might not necessarily align with what we would consider democratic today, it is essential to better understand how they emerged from conflict and how they sought to implement constitutional changes.
Books
2025 Armed citizens and citizens in arms: the military and the creation of the state in nineteenth-century Peru Cambridge University Press
Los Años de Castilla (1840-1865). Instituto de Estudios Peruanos
2024 Ayacucho 1824. El fin del ciclo revolucionario. Fondo de Cultura Económica
La Nación Subyacente. Diez ensayos para pensar la independencia peruana. Peguin Random House
2022 Independence and Nation-Building in Latin America. Race and Identity in the Crucible of War co-authored with Scott Eastman. Routledge
2021 Republicas sudamericanas en construcción. Hacia una historia en común, Fondo de Cultura Económica/ Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos
Independencia. A 200 años de Lucha por la Libertad, Penguin Random House
2019 Los inicios de la República Peruana. Viendo más allá de la «Cueva de Bandoleros», Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
2015 The Rise of Constitutional Government in the Iberian Atlantic World. The impact of the 1812 Cadiz Constitution edited with Scott Eastman University of Alabama Press
Andrés de Santa Cruz, caudillo de los Andes, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
2011 The Caudillo of the Andes: Andrés de Santa Cruz Cambridge University Press
El Diario de Campaña del General Joaquín de la Pezuela en la gesta contrarrevolucionaria en el Alto Perú (1813-1816), critical Edition with introductory study, edited with Pablo Ortemberg, Ediciones Bicentenario, Santiago de Chile (reprinted in 2020 by Peruvian Bicentennial commission)
Articles
2023 “The Abolition of Slavery in the South American Republics” in Slavery and Abolition. A Journal of Slavery and Post-Studies. Vol 44, Issue 1,
2021 “Disputando el poder de la fuerza con la ley: Los liberales en la temprana república peruana y la guerra civil de 1834” in Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas
“La campaña a los puertos intermedios y la fase «peruana» de la independencia” in Revista de Indias 81 (281), pp. 115-141.
2020 “Interrogating Culture in Latin America” Review Essay in Latin American Research Review 55(2), pp. 360–367
2019 “Regular and irregular Forces in conflict in nineteenth century insurgencies in South America” with Alejandro Rabinovich, Small Wars and Insurgencies Vol. 30.
“Artillery, engineering and mathematics: statecraft and scientific knowledge of military men from the Bourbons to the creation of the Peruvian State (1770-1840) Nuevo Mundo/Mundos Nuevos 11 Junio
2017 "Power of the law or power of the sword: the conflictive relationship between the executive and the legislative in nineteenth-century Peru" Parliaments Estates and Representation, London, n. 2
2016 «Hallándome viuda sin recursos, sin apoyo y en la más deplorable situación»: El montepío militar y la creación del Estado en el Perú (1800-1880) Caravelle, Toulouse, n.106
Book Chapters
2026 “The contested Peruvian election of 1850 and the 1854 Revolution” in Eduardo Posada-Carbó and Andrew Robertson. The Oxford Handbook of Revolutionary Elections Oxford University Press
2023 “Emerging States” in Eduardo Posada Carbó and Joanna Innes Reimagining democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1780-1870 Oxford: Oxford University Press
2022 “¿Qué tan falaz fue la prosperidad?: auge y caída del Estado guanero (1840-1880)” in Paulo Drinot and Alberto Vergara La Condena de la Libertad: De Túpac Amaru II al bicentenario peruano en seis ensayos y un colofón Planeta / Universidad del Pacífico
“Del imperio a la república: las milicias peruanas de la primera mitad del siglo XIX” in Flavia Macías and Véronique Hébrard Milices et Gardes Nationales Latino-Américaines Rennes: Les Perséides
2018 “Nation-Making and Nationalism” in Linda J. Seligmann and Kathleen S. Fine-Dare eds. The Andean World, Routledge
“How (not) to make a durable state” in Andrew Ginger and Geraldine Lawless eds. Spain in the nineteenth century. New essays on experiences of culture and society. Manchester University Press
