History 188: Modern Latin America

Latin America often exists in the North American popular imagination as a series of colorful stereotypes — suave Latin lovers, peasants sleeping under sombreros, wild-eyed revolutionaries in banana republics. This class will replace those myths with a view of the Latin Americans as people, not stereotypes. We will look at shared social, political, and economic problems while also appreciating the diversity of the region by examining the specific cases of various nations. The class, which covers the 19th and 20th centuries, beginning with independence from Spain, will be conducted by lecture and discussion.