Spring 2009

HIS 363K • Cold War in Latin America-W

Course Description

This course will explore the impact of the Cold War in Latin America from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. Specifically, it will examine the role that Latin America played in the US Cold War scenario, with regard to the advance and containment of global communism. It will explore growing US strategic interests in the region, particularly after Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba in 1959. We will examine the rise of guerrilla movements in Latin America nad the impact of the Left on the political imaginations of Latin American intellectuals and church people. We will examine Doctrine of National Security and the emergence of national security states in Latin America, including their use of irregular warfare, such as disappearances and mass killings. Finally, we will explore some of the "paradoxes of peace," including issues of historic memory and reconciliation that face societies that have been traumatized by war. Some of the specific case studies we will examine will include: Cuba, Argentina, Chile, and Central America

This class will consist of lectures, films, discussions, a group project, an individual project, and a short research paper based on original research using the National Security Archives.

Grading Policy

Class Participation: 10% Film Project: 10% Group Project: 10% Individual Project: 10% Research Paper: 60%

Texts

Susana Kaiser, Postmemories of Terror: A New Generation Copes with Argentina's Dirty War (Palgrave, 2005) Peter Smith, Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of US-Latin American Relations (Oxford, 2000) Steve Stern, The Memory Box of Pinochet's Chile (Duke, 2006)

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