Sometimes things that don't happen are as important in explaining subsequent events as those that do, as Sherlock Holmes said of the dog that failed to bark. In Latin America, there also was a dog that didn't bark: the large-scale and continuous political violence that was so critical in shaping Western European states and national identity simply didn't convulse the New World. On the one hand, this was a good thing: Latin America has been a much more peaceful continent than either Europe or Asia. On the other hand, its political institutions developed more slowly as a result, and the older forms of authoritarian government as well as the social inequalities on which they were based persisted for much longer. EXPLOITATION