Department of History

Level: 2

Semester: 1

Prerequisite: None

(Not Currently Offered)

Course Description:

This course surveys the major political, social, and economic events, forces, and figures in Latin America throughout the long nineteenth century.  The course surveys the History of the region beginning with the collapse of the Spanish ruling system in Spanish America and the transformation of the Portuguese Empire in Brazil. It examines the causes and effects of the independence movements in Latin America, and concludes at the dawn of the twentieth century.  The course focuses on Cuba’s anti-colonial and abolition struggles and expansion of the colonial sugar economy and on the challenging trajectories of newly independent states and societies in Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina throughout the 1800s.  The course is structured by lectures and student participation and draws support from various sources, including primary documents, scholarly interpretative texts, film, and Latin American literary, political, and social voices.