TOPICS: LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY: FROM 1800 TO THE PRESENT in Spring 2026 (HI1091A)

This course examines the political, social, and economic transformations of Latin America from the turn of the nineteenth century to the present, weaving together intellectual currents, popular struggles, and global linkages. We begin with Enlightenment ideas and the wars of independence, then trace the legacies of slavery and abolition and the centrality of Indigenous questions—from local resistance to leaders such as Quintín Lame—to processes of territorial expansion and state formation. The course analyzes key episodes and structures that shaped modern Latin America: the export boom and the Belle Époque; the Mexican Revolution; the diffusion and adaptation of Marxist thought; U.S. interventionism and its effects; the Cuban Revolution; authoritarian developmentalism; the rise of military dictatorships; and the contemporary intersections of agribusiness, resource extraction, and the environmental crisis. Readings combine primary sources and recent historiography to explore continuities and ruptures across region and time, asking how ideas, class conflicts, racial hierarchies, and international markets produced competing projects of modernization, resistance, and environmental change. By the end of the course students will be able to situate major events in comparative perspective, critically assess diverse theoretical approaches, and analyze how past dynamics continue to shape present-day struggles over land, rights, and sustainability in Latin America.