Modern Latin America
History 439/539
Fall 2003
Dale Graden
T,Th, 11 - 12:15
Albertsons 204
Office: Admin 305 A; telephone: 885-8956
Office hour: Monday 9-10, or by appointment
Email: Graden@uidaho.edu
Online: www.class.uidaho.edu/Graden/
This syllabus is available online
The purpose of this course is to offer an overview of Latin America's histories
and cultures from the 19th to the early 21st century. Emphasis is placed on United States relations with Latin America and the
ties between literature and history.
It is imperative that you attend the class meetings, and that you do the readings.
Please come to our meeting prepared to discuss the readings. The quality of the discourse in the classroom depends upon your preparation and commitment. Do not hesitate to ask questions at any time. Please, feel free to challenge my interpretations of history and culture or share your own insights. My days are enhanced significantly when I learn about new ideas and your perspectives. My goal is for this to be
a challenging and interesting course.
I reserve the right to determine a grade based on attendance and participation. If you miss more than
four meetings, your final grade will drop by a grade. If you cannot attend a class for health or other reasons,
best to send a message via email to let me know or leave a note in my mailbox in
the department of History. I pay close attention to attendance. I emphasize to you that your involvement makes a class of this nature a worthwhile endeavor for everyone.
There will be one required book critique of E.Bradford Burns, The Poverty
of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century due in class on 11
September (late papers not accepted) and a second book
critique of your choice during the semester. If you prefer to read a book that
is not part of the class syllabus, please let me know before you read it so
that we agree on your choice. There will also be a final exam
which you will write during the final exam period. I will give you the question
at our last class meeting on Thursday, 11 December. I request that you write
your essay on Thursday 18 December without notes or books with you.
The two book critiques will be 3-4 typewritten pages. Each paper is worth
thirty (30) points, the final exam is worth thirty (30) points and your
participation is worth ten (10) points.
If you are taking this class for graduate credit, I request that you write an extra paper of five to ten (5-10) pages on a topic of your choice. This paper will be worth forty (40) points, and the final grade of graduate students will be based on 140 points.
The two book critiques are not “book reports.” Rather, the critique is an essay based on
your interpretation of the important theme(s) of the book. I want to learn from your ideas and observations and critical analysis, and not
receive an overview of the ideas of the author. According to the law of effective writing, the paper should begin with an introduction, and the last sentence of the introductory paragraph should inform the reader (me) of the central theme or focus of the critique. Then construct coherent paragraphs that analyze in a logical manner the topic. Finally, finish with a conclusion.
A suggested length is three type-written pages, double-spaced.
Please, write the paper a few days before the due date, so that you can return to it and review it thoroughly at least once before you hand it to me. This will enable you to make corrections and refinements. I have read hundreds of such essays, and know when someone has scribbled down a bunch of ideas the night before and when the assignment has been approached seriously.
Writing a reflection essay is important. You have dared to ask why? Because the majority of students graduate from universities and colleges across the land unable to write coherently on a specific topic or reading. I hope that you find the readings challenging and stimulating. In other words, I hope that the books inspire you to take pen (computer, typewriter,
pencil, charcoal) in hand to write down your ideas. The discussion offers a great opportunity for you to share with the class your
perspectives, impressions, sentiments, worldview, etc. I am convinced that we all have much to gain by engaging in a reasoned and critical dialogue with each other, no matter if you agree or disagree with the viewpoint of other persons. Many former students have let me know that they
learned much from discussions and considered writing opportunities an important part of their university
education. If you have any concerns about your
writing skills, I encourage you to take advantage of the great opportunities that are available to you at the UI writing center.
A helpful and concise description of how to write a book critique can be
found at http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/critique.html
I would like to note that several major newspapers and other websites of interest for this course can be viewed at my website. Newspapers like
The New York Times provide useful domestic and international coverage of stories related to our course. I encourage you to read at least one newspaper (and others!) every day.
The following books are available for purchase at the UI Bookstore and are
on reserve in the library.
Duncan Green, Faces of
E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of
Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century U of
Jennifer Harbury, Bridge of Courage: Life Stories of the Guatemalan Companeros
and Companeras Common Courage Press 156751068X
Week one Introduction
Please begin reading Burns, The Poverty of
Progress and Green, Faces of Latin America
T 26 Guest presentation / discussion led by Professor Dennis West, Film Studies
and Spanish
T 28 no class
Week two Colonial Latin America
M Sept 1 Labor Day, no classes
T Sept 2 Portuguese and Spanish empires 1400-1898
Th 4 Red, Black, Mestizo, Mulatto, Caboclo, Creole,
White: Race, class and gender in colonial Latin America
Week three Latin America in the Nineteenth Century
T 9 The Hidden History of Port Cities and Hinterlands
Th 11 First required book critique due on
Burns, The Poverty of Progress and discussion
Week four England and France in Latin America in the 19th century; "The New Empire"
of the US 1890s-1930s; Popular response and resistance
T 16 caudillos, dictators, and structural history
segment from "Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, World Bank and IMF"
Th 18 The Spanish-Cuban-American War
1868-1898
view a segment from film "Crucible of Empire: The Spanish American
War"
Week five El Salvador
Reading : Castro, Revolution and Revolutionaries. Pick your readings. A few
suggestions include introduction and essays 4, 5, 7, 8, 17.
recommended reading on reserve: Dale T. Graden and James W. Martin, "Oliver Stone's
Salvador (1986): Revolution for the Unacquainted," Film and
History 38: 3-4 (1998), 19-27.
T 23 begin film "Salvador"
Th 25 conclude "Salvador" and discussion about "the matanza"
and revolution in El
Salvador
Week six US and Latin America in the 1950s
T 30 World War II, McCarthyism, anti-communism
Th Oct 2 dependency theory
Week seven Cuba and the Guerrilla Movements of the 1960s
T 7 "Contesting Castro: The US and the Triumph of the Cuban
Revolution"
Th 9 Che as myth and symbol; legacies of the
Revolution
Week eight Guatemala I
Reading: Harbury, Bridge of Courage
T 14 : 1954
Th 16 Guatemala's military security state
Week nine Guatemala II
Reading: Harbury, Bridge of Courage
T 21 Mayan culture and resistance
Th 23 second optional book critique due on Harbury,
Bridge of Courage and discussion
Week ten Democratic Transitions
Reading: Phillips, The Third Wave of Modernization
T 28 the new democracies
Th 30 international drug trade
Week eleven Neo-liberalism
T Nov 4 liberalism and neo-liberalism
Th 6 Argentina 1950-2003
T 11 Mexico's Revolution 1910-1920
Th 13 The Zapatista insurgency 1994-2003
Week thirteen Brazil I
T 18 Brazil in the early 20th century
Th 20 : 1964 and 1968
Thanksgiving
Reading: Freire, Letters to Cristina
T Dec 2 liberation theology and a pedagogy for the oppressed
Th 4 expulsion, exile and return
Week sixteen Conclusions (dead week)
Reading: Freire, Letters to Cristina
T Dec 9 Reflections on education; Lula and the Workers Party (PT)
Th 11 Third optional book critique due on
Freire, Letters to Cristina and discussion
I will hand out the final exam question
Final Exam : Thursday 18 December 10 am to 12
Some recommended books
US and Latin America
Van Gosse, Where the Boys are: Cuba, Cold War America and the Making of a New Left
Stephen G. Rabe, Eisenhower and Latin America: The Foreign Policy of Anticommunism
Stephen G. Rabe, The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America
Susan Martin, ed., Decade of Protest: Political Posters from the United States, Vietnam and Cuba, 1965-1975
E. Bradford Burns, Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History
Eduardo Galeano, trans. Mark Fried, Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World
Cedric Belfrage, The American Inquisition, 1945-1960: A Profile of the
"McCarthy Era"
Cuba
Thomas G. Paterson, Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of
the Cuban Revolution
Louis A. Pérez, Jr., Cuba: Between Reform and Revolution
Carlos Franqui, Family Portrait with Fidel
Julie Marie Bunck, Fidel Castro and the Quest for a Revolutionary Culture in Cuba
Lois M. Smith and Alfred Padula, Sex and Revolution: Women in Socialist Cuba
Jorge Castañeda, Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara
Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
Medea Benjamin, Cuba, Talking About Revolution: Conversations with Juan
Antonio Blanco
Ann Louise Bardach, Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana
Dominican Republic
Bruce J. Calder, The Impact of Intervention: The Dominican Republic during
the U.S. Occupation of 1916-1924
Bernard Diederich, Trujillo: The Death of a Dictator
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat, translated by Edith Grossman
Manuel Vasquez Montalban, Galindez
Julia Alvarez, In the Name of Salome'
Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies
Nicaragua
Omar Cabezas, Fire from the Mountain: The Making of a Sandinista
Robert Edgar Conrad, editor and translator, Sandino: The Testimony of a Nicaraguan Patriot, 1921-1934
Margaret Randall, Risking a Somersault in the Air: Conversations with Nicaraguan Writers
Thomas Walker, ed., Reagan Versus the Sandinistas: The Undeclared War on Nicaragua
E. Bradford Burns, At War in Nicaragua: The Reagan Doctrine and the Politics of Nostalgia
John Brentlinger, The Best of What We Are: Reflections on the Nicaraguan Revolution
Ernesto Cardenal, Cosmic Canticle
Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua
Claribel Alegria and Darwin Flakoll, Death of Somoza: The First Person Story of the Guerrillas Who Assassinated the Nicaraguan Dictator
Thomas W. Walker, Nicaragua without Illusions: Regime Transition and Structural Adjustment in the 1990s
Joan Kruckewitt, The Death of Ben Linder: The Story of a North American in
Sandinista Nicaragua
Matilde Zimmermann, Sandinista: Carlos Fonseca and the Nicaraguan Revolution
Guatemala
Jean-Marie Simon, Guatemala: Eternal Spring, Eternal Tyranny
Eduardo Galeano, trans. Cedric Belfrage, Guatemala: Occupied Country
Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala
Richard H. Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention
Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemala Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954
Hal Cohen, "The Unmaking of Rigoberta Menchu," in David E. Lorey and William E.
Beezley, eds., Genocide, Collective Violence and Popular Memory: The Politics of Remembrance in the Twentieth Century, 53-64
Arturo Arias, ed., The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy
El Salvador
Thomas P. Anderson, Matanza
José Ignacio López Vigil, Rebel Radio: The Story of El Salvador’s Radio Venceremos
Mario Lungo Uclés, El Salvador in the Eighties: Counterinsurgency and Revolution
Roque Dalton, Miguel Marmol
James R. Brockman, Romero: A Life
Mark Danner, The Massacre at El Mazote: A Parable of Cold War
Central America
Philip Berryman, Stubborn Hope: Religion, Politics and Revolution
John H. Coatsworth, Central America and the United States
Thomas W. Walker and Ariel Armony, Repression, Resistance and Democratic Transition in Central America
Brazil
Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God's Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil
João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in
Bahia, trans. Arthur Brakel
Hendrik Kraay, Culture and Politics in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Afro-Bahia
Ruth Landes, City of Women
Amelia Simpson, Xuxa: The Mega-Marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity
Abdias do Nascimento, Brazil: Mixture or Massacre; Essays on the Genocide of a Black People
Kim D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in Post-Abolition São Paulo and Salvador
Phyllis Galembo, Divine Inspiration: From Benin to Bahia
Overview of Mexico
William H. Beezley and Colin M. MacLachlan, El
Gran Pueblo: A History of Greater Mexico
Ramón Eduardo Ruiz, Triumphs and Tragedies: A History of the Mexican
People
Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power; A History of Modern Mexico,
1810-1996
Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, The Oxford History of Mexico
Michael C. Meyer, William L. Sherman, Susan M. Deeds, The Course of
Mexican History, sixth edition
Independence in Mexico 1810-1825
Hugh Hamill, The Hidalgo Revolt
Jay Kinsbruner, Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions
and Underdevelopment
Christian I. Archer, ed., The Wars of Independence in Spanish America
Carlos Fuentes, The Campaign
Gabriel Garcia Marques, The General in His Labyrinth
Mexico’s Revolution 1910-1920
Ramón Eduardo Ruíz, The Great
Rebellion: Mexico 1905-1924
John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the
Mexican Revolution
John Mason Hart, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico Since the
Civil War
John Womack, Jr., Zapata and the Mexican Revolution
Michael Gonzales, The Mexican Revolution
Adofo Gilly, The Mexican Revolution
Paul Garner, Porfirio Díaz: Profiles in Power
Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz
The Muralists
Bertram D. Wolfe, The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera
Antony W. Lee, Painting on the Left: Diego Rivera, Radical Politics and
San Francisco’s Public Murals
Linda Bank Downs, Diego Rivera: The Detroit Industry Murals
Desmond Rochfort, Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros
Patrick Marnham and Elise Goodman, Dreaming with his Eyes Open: A Life of
Diego Rivera
Susan Platt, Art and Politics in the 1930s: Modernism, Marxism,
Americanism; A History of Cultural Activism During the Depression Years
Laurance P. Hurlburt, The Mexican Muralists in the United States
Zapatistas, 1994 to present
Tom Hayden, ed., The Zapatista Reader
George A. Collier and Elizabeth Lowerty Quaratiello, Basta! Land and the
Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas
John Womack, Jr., Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader
Neil Harvey, The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy
Subcommandante Marcos et.al., Our Word is Our Weapon: Selected Writings
Border and Mexamerica
Lucy R. Lippard et.al., Distant
Relations: Chicano, Irish, Mexican Art and Critical Writings
John Mason Hart, ed., Border Crossings: Mexican and Mexican-American
Workers
Oscar J. Martínez, ed., US-Mexico Borderlands: Historical and
Contemporary Perspectives
David G. Gutiérrez, ed., Between Two Worlds: Mexican Immigrants in the
United States
Richard W. Etulain, ed., César Chávez: A Brief Biography with Documents
Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos
Zaragosa Vargas, ed., Major Problems in Mexican American History
Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo
T.C. Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain
Bobby Byrd and Susannah Mississippi Byrd, eds., The Late Great Mexican
Border: Reports from a Disappearing Line
Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands: La Frontiera
Coco Fusco, The Bodies That Were Not Ours
Lucy R. Lippard et.al., Distant Relations: Chicano, Irish, Mexican Art
and Critical Writing
A few recommended films
Amazon
The Burning Season
At Play in the Fields of the Lord
The Emerald Forest
The Burning Season: The Chico Mendes Story
Brasil
Pixote
Behind the Sun
Central Station
Bananas Is My Business
Four Days in September
Death and the Maiden
Carmen Miranda: Bananas is my Business
Caribbean
Burn
Sugar Cane Alley
Strawberry and Chocolate
Memories of Underdevelopment
Mexico
Traffic (on reserve)
Milagro Beanfield War
Lone Star
Frida
Kahlo
Like Water for Chocolate
Zapatista
Central America
"Salvador"
Romero
El Norte
Frontline: War on Nicaragua