Margarita Garrido is a historian of colonial and republican New Granada (Colombia). In 1991 she obtained her D. Phil. from the University of Oxford. Her dissertation, published as Reclamos y representaciones Variaciones sobre la política en el Nuevo Reino de Granada 1770-1815, studied the participation of different social groups in public life, their notions of authority and common good, and their sense of belonging and identity. Her more recent work has been about processes of pacification of colonial rebellions and of nineteenth century civil wars. She is professor at Universidad de los Andes and member of the CEHIS (Centro de Estudios en Historia), at Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogotá.