"In her book, Incomplete Conquest, Stephanie Mawson provides an examination that posits an alternative view of Spanish colonization. Mawson does this by assessing the limitations that hindered the complete colonization of the Philippines. She proposes different obstacles which limited internal control of the Captaincy-General of the Philippines and hindered its further expansion. She argues that while colonial institutions (i.e. military and church) portrayed an idea of full control and power in the archipelago, they simply did not possess such strength due to the limitations that the colonial state encountered in the seventeenth century. To support this argument, the author utilizes archival materials from Spain, Mexico, Rome, the United States, and the Philippines where she additionally conducted nontraditional research in Northern Luzon together with Filipino scholars and locals."