Fall 2005

HIS 310L • Lat Amer Civ: Natl Experience

Course Description

This course examines the history of Latin America and the Caribbean from the early nineteenth-century Wars of Independence to the present day. Because the course aims to provide a regional perspective, we will adopt a thematic approach that balances transnational, national, and local histories. Our focus will be on Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala and Cuba, although discussions will not be limited to these countries. The principle objective of the course is to examine the social, economic, political and cultural hierarchies that emerged out of the regions precolonial and colonial pasts and shaped the lives of Latin Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will also explore such topics as the formation of nations and the nineteenth-century postcolonial order, the role of popular mobilizations in remaking those arrangements, and the neoliberalism of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Course materials will include primary documents, films, music, and secondary works produced by historians.

Grading Policy

Film Review: 15% Midterm exam: 25% Final Exam: 35% Class Participation: 25%

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