HIST 151 Modern Latin America

This course offers a survey of postcoloial Latin America as a process of cultural transformation political struggle and economic change. We will explore the complex challenges of colonial legacies posed to emerging nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and seek a balance between engaging particular histories and larger processes common to the region. The first section of the course introduces themes of the nineteenth century: colonial heritage and the different routes taken to political independence; the political economic and social challenges of independence in a multi-cultural context; citizenship and race and the development of export agriculture. The second section introduces themes of the twentieth century: industrialization; revolution; U.S.-Latin American relations; and select intellectual trends. Students will use a variety of sources including scholarly works films and primary sources to engage these topics and issues.