Writing in 1811, during the early rumblings of the Spanish American independence movements, Thomas Jefferson harboured little optimism about the “great field of political experiment [that] is opening in our neighbourhood”. He did not believe the people of South and Central America were capable of establishing successful republics.

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“I fear the degrading ignorance into which their priests & kings have sunk them, has disqualified them from the maintenance, or even knowledge of their rights,” he wrote, predicting “that much blood may be shed for little improvement in their condition”.

Two centuries later, in Marie Arana’s Silver, Sword & Stone: Three Crucibles of the Latin American Story, this harsh assessment appears to hold true. Setting herself the “impossible task” of trying to explain “a hemisphere and its people”, Arana organizes her book around these three tropes: the kings, bloodshed and priests that so dimmed Jefferson’s view. To Arana, the legacies of these forces continue to cause suffering for millions.

The first section, Silver, focus on precious metals, moving between the Spanish conquistadors’ thirst for plata and the impoverished Peruvians of today who chip away in dangerous conditions for a pittance from foreign mining companies.

The most worrying aspect of her book is the repeated claim that violence is somehow in the blood of all Latin Americans

From there the book turns to Sword, or violence. There is no doubt Arana, who is Peruvian-American, cares deeply about Peru and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, but she does it no favours here, arguing that there is something inherent to Latin American people that propels them to embrace violence and “strongman” leaders. These chapters are a kaleidoscope of horror, as she vividly describes centuries of uprisings, dictatorships and civil wars.

The final section, Stone, examines faith and religion. The narrative goes back to pre-Columbian practices and examines the disruption wrought by Christianity, while also moving into the present to discuss rising Protestant evangelicalism and its challenge to Catholic dominance.

Arana should be lauded for presenting such a complex historical panorama but as she notes, her book “does not pretend to be a definitive, comprehensive history”. Her previous book was a biography of Simón Bolívar but Arana is also a novelist and memoirist. She brings poetic touches to her prose, though at points it veers into melodrama or cliche: irritatingly, the phrase “since time immemorial” crops up many times. Her energy and verve will no doubt attract many readers, yet there are some unresolved issues at the core of her argument.

The first problem is her positioning of “Latin” America as solely Hispanic. What about Brazil? Or Guyana? They share the continent, but not this story. When the French were preparing to invade Mexico in the 1860s, even they tried to paint themselves as “Latin”. The Philippines are also absent, despite some 300 years as a Spanish colony.

Arana argues that while there is a “commonality – a concrete character” across Spanish America, there is “no northern equivalent”. For her, Latin America appears to stop at the Rio Grande. Given that Spain claimed and colonized parts of what became the United States from the early 1500s until the 19th century, this seems a narrow view.

All the Americas, including Canada, experienced a shared history after 1492: the arrival of Europeans, the destruction of indigenous communities, African slavery, political revolution, endemic violence, corruption and inequality. Certainly this varied in scope and degree but it is difficult to argue any sort of Hispanic exceptionalism in an entire hemisphere shaped by similar forces.

This leads to the second knot in Arana’s argument. She says greed, violence and religion have uniquely shaped Spanish America. But they have affected much of the rest of the world. Such places can be found wherever European powers stepped ashore. The story Arana tells could apply to much of the postcolonial “global south”, from the Congo to India to Cambodia.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stone: the Iglesia del Triunfo in Cusco, Peru. Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP

The most worrying aspect of her book, however, is the repeated claim that violence is somehow in the blood of all Latin Americans. This is dangerously reductive and essentialist thinking, bordering on calling all Latinos “bad hombres”, to borrow the words of Donald Trump.

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Arana employs the idea of “epigenetic inheritance”, a relatively recent area of scientific inquiry that examines how a social environment – for instance, a war zone – can influence the biology and behavior of generations of people. Rather unscientifically, however, she applies it to an entire continent. Discussing Mexico, she writes that it “has been unable to rid itself of its violent propensities. They are primal catalysts, after all; bred in the bone, difficult to overcome”. To drive the point home, she entitles her epilogue “It’s just our nature”. Change “our” to “their” and that could be a Fox News chyron.

Arana concedes that there are other stories to be told about Latin America – and “happier ones” at that. It is certainly not her duty, or that of any writer, to put a cheerful face on the legacies of colonialism. The facts are not to be quibbled with here. But the conclusions are.

Arana wonders if Latin Americans have “learned to witness history with a certain helplessness”, while also arguing that they are in this situation because they have “never ceased to be colonized – by exploiters, conqueror, proselytizers”. Such a negative assessment will undoubtedly leave readers agreeing with Arana’s pessimistic conclusion that Latin America is unable to understand its own history, and that “the crucibles of silver, sword, and stone will continue to write its story”.