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Buenos Aires, Argentina - UB - Elective - PEAL 312 - 20th Century Latin American History
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COURSE SYLLABUS: 20TH CENTURY LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Partner Institution: University of Belgrano

Course Title (English): 20th Century Latin American History

Course Title (Spanish): Historia latinoamericana siglo XX

Sessions Offered: Fall Semester, Spring Semester

Instructional in: Spanish

Classroom Contact Hours: 45 contact hours

College Credit (Semester Credit Hours): 3 credit hours

College Credit (Quarter Units): 4.5 quarter units

Prerequisites (English): None if taught in English

Prerequisites (Spanish): Intermediate II Spanish Level if taught in Spanish

Local Department: Programa de estudios argentinos y latinoamericanos

Course Coder: PEAL 412

Course Description

This course gives a brief overview of Latin American history since independence. It describes how Spain’s colonies became nation states and how these new republics gradually consolidated their political, social and economic systems. It outlines the ideas and careers of their founding fathers, as well as the major political figures of the twentieth century. In particular, it compares the socio-political developments of the 1940s and 1950s (e.g. under Getulio Vargas in Brazil, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Juan D. Perón in Argentina). It also examines the causes and consequences of the many military coups in the region, together with the eventual return to democracy. Finally, the program analyzes political changes in Latin America since the end of the Cold War and the region’s current situation in the 21st century.

Program Methodology

Unit 1: Crisis of Independence. The new republics, 1800-1870
Crisis of the Spanish empire in the frame of the Great Revolutions. The emergence of new regional political units. Spanish inheritance and other influences in the emerging system. The rise of “caudillos”. The United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata and the Brazilian Empire. The rise of British Influence. The civil wars and the formation of a new Latin American society. Ethnicities and power. The consolidation of regional differences. Caudillos. Argentina and the autonomist project of Paraguay.

Unit 2: Neocolonial order, 1870-1930

International insertion, modernization and the formation of the new elites. The oligarchy republics. Factors of stability and instability in the different societies of Argentina, the Mexico of Porfirio Díaz and the Cuban independence. New social actors and new political parties in Latin American society. The democratization of the regional republics. European immigration, the new ideologies and the question of identity. United States: Panamericanism and interventionism. Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama.

Unit 3: Crisis and transformation, 1930-1960

Impact of international crisis. The process of substitution of imports. Nationalism facing political intervention and foreign economics. Emergence of Populism. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico of the Revolution, Guatemala and Bolivia. Second World War and the Cold War

Unit 4: Latin America and the Cold War, 1945-1989

Impact of world bipolarity (bipolaridad mundial). Substitution of imports and the new middles classes. Populism. The limits of transformations in Latin America. Military intervention and resistance movements. Regional security: OEA and TIAR. Intervention of the US as part of the continental political system. The Doctrine of National Security. The recuperation of democracy underneath external debt. Growth and instability in Argentina and Brazil. The Revolution in Cuba and Chile. Standstill and war in Central America: Guatemala and Nicaragua. Drugs in the new economy. Peru and Colombia.

Unit 5: Towards a new identity in front of globalization, 1989-2000

Impact of the end of global bipolarism. Globalization and structural transformations. The new relations of power in the new democracies. The new Latin American agenda: ecology, regional migrations, drug trafficking and money laundering, polarization and social exclusion. Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. Colombia and Cuba.

Program Schedule

Week 1 - Course introduction

Crisis of the Spanish Empire en the framework of the Great Revolutions. The emergence of new regional political units. Spanish inheritance and other influences in the emerging system. The rise of “caudillos”.

Week 2 - Revolution and war of Independence. Brazil.

Required reading:

Week 3 - The formation of new republics: 1820-1870 & Civil wars: 1820-1860 – towards the constitution of the national states.

Social and political actors. Argentina: thinking of the future nation: intellectuals and politics (Generation of 1837). Ideological and cultural matrix: civilization and barbarism

Oral presentations on the Generation of 1837 as represented in La invención de Argentina de Nicolas Shumway (chapters 5 and 6) Required reading:

Week 4 - The formation of the new republics: towards national unification and the construction of the states
Political and social antagonism. Social subjects and the nation.

Required reading:

Week 5 - Neocolonial order: 1870-1910 – Immigration, europization, modernization. 

Oral presentation on “Las ideas políticas sobre la nación en Latinoamérica durante la segunda mitad del siglo XIX” by Humberto Morales Moreno (JSTOR)

Required reading:

Week 6 - Mexican Revolution – Argentina and the crisis of integration

Law Saenz Peña – Tendency towards democratization in Latin America. Introduction to Latin American Populism.

Oral presentations on the articles by John Hart “El México revolucionario” and by Silvia Cragnolino “Zapata y la revolución campesina en México.” Required reading:

Week 7 - Crisis and transformation during the period of the World Wars: 1914-1945

Introduction to Latin American Populism.

Oral presentations on Weffort, Francisco “Getulismo / Varguismo en Brasil” and Knight, Alan “Cardenismo en México.” Required reading:

Week 8 - Mid term

Week 9 - The first Peronism: 1945. The Populist State. Sociopolitical and cultural characteristics

The role of Eva Perón.

Oral presentation on Sidicaro, Roberto. “Las características del Peronismo.” Required reading:

Week 10 - (continued) The first Peronism: 1945

The Populist State. Sociopolitical and cultural characteristics. The role of Eva Perón.

Oral presentation on James, Daniel. “El peronismo y la clase trabajadora” (19-68). Plotkin, Mariano. “Primero de mayo y 17 de octubre” (chapters 3 and 4) of Mañana es San Perón Fraser, Nicholas and Navarro, Marysa. Eva Perón. (102-167). Required reading:

Week 11 - Latin America during the Cold War

Latin America since 1960. The era of the revolutions. Oral presentation on Knight, Alan: Revolución social, una perspectiva latinoamericana. Required reading:

Week 12 - Doctrine of National Security – Coup d’etat in the Southern Cone – Disappearances and terrorism of the state

Argentina: War of Malvinas – Human Rights organizations and democratic transition.

Oral presentation on León Rozichner, De la guerra sucia a la guerra limpia (chapter 2). Required reading:

Week 13 - Continuation of the previous week. 

The debate on historic memory. Oral presentations on Hugo Vezzetti Pasado y Presente (chapters 1 and 2, 3, 4 and 5)

Week 14 Democratic transitions in the Southern Cone – the Nicaraguan Revolution

Moving towards a new identity in the context of globalization: 1989-2000. The crisis of 2001 in Argentina. Discussion of final projects. Turn in written work.

Week15 - Final Exam

Course Evaluation

In agreement with the policies of the University of Belgrano the student can only have a 25% absence rate. The percentage of attendance that is required in order to take the final exam is 75%. Any trip or excursion that is not planned in the calendar is part of the 25% absence.

Bibliography (Text and Materials)

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