HISTORY 100E
Latin America and the World
Professor Patrick Iber
Spring 2014 / MWF 11AM-12 / 88 Dwinelle
If anything knits together the
diverse region known as Latin America, it is a shared experience of imperialism
and neo-imperialism on the world stage. This course will examine the ways in
which the nations of Latin America have managed that fate: resisting it,
embracing it, and trying to reform it. We will examine cases of clear
interventions by foreign empires, from France in nineteenth-century Mexico to
the U.S. in Central America and Chile in the late twentieth. But we will also
look at more subtle forms of economic and cultural influence, and consider the
ways that Latin American nations from Cuba to Costa Rica tried to limit the
power of the U.S. and project their own influence. We will end with a
discussion of transnational issues in contemporary Latin America, including the
drugs trade. Class will feature frequent student-led debates.
Course texts:
Stephen Rabe, The Killing Zone: The United States Wages
Cold War in Latin America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Gobat,
Michel. Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua Under U.S. Imperial Rule. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University
Press, 2005, $27.
Emily S.
Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream:
American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945, (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1982), $21.
Nick Cullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account
of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952-1954, Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2006, $19.
Piero Gleijeses, The Cuban Drumbeat, Chicago: Seagull
Books, 2009, $15.
Ioan Grillo. El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal
Insurgency, New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012, $18.
Your grade will be based on the following:
20% reading journals. As you do the course readings, keep a
running log of your reactions. Each week, you should write a couple of
paragraphs in response (200-300 words), explaining reactions, responses, and
questions raised by the readings. You can skip writing your reaction (but not
the reading!) in two weeks out of the semester without penalty. Your journals
will be collected twice: once in the middle of the term, and again at the end.
20% Debate brief. Once during the semester, each student
will be responsible for writing an elaborate debate brief, of 5-7 pages, based
on that week’s readings. The brief should have three parts: it should lay out
the debate position you are defending, explain the most powerful rebuttals to
your argument, and finally feature a counter-rebuttal in which you attempt to
respond to those arguments. Students who prepare briefs will then lead teams
during the in-class debate.
20% Debate participation.
20% Group WikiLeaks projects. The WikiLeaks document release
contained interesting material about Latin America, and it has made possible a
partial understanding of the techniques and limitations of U.S. diplomacy in
the region in very recent years. You will sign up to analyze one country. With
the other people signed up for the same country, you will develop a
presentation for the class that excerpts the most important parts of leaked
documents and explains the overall picture of U.S.-Latin American relations
that emerges from them. Presentations will be given in class during week 13,
and during RRR week if necessary.
20% final. As required in all “100” courses, there is an
in-class final. Ours is scheduled for Tuesday May 13, from 7-10PM.
Course schedule:
Week 1: Introduction
W, Jan. 22: Introduction
to the class, syllabus
F, Jan. 24: Discussion
Readings:
“Introduction,” 3-12 in
George Lichtheim, Imperialism, (New
York: Praeger, 1971).
“Imperialism as a Special
Stage of Capitalism,” in V. I. Lenin, Imperialism:
The Highest Stage of Capitalism, (New York: International Publishers,
1939).
Rabe, Killing Zone, “Introduction”
Discussion: What is the
most useful definition of imperialism for the purposes of thinking about the
relationship of the U.S. to Latin America?
Week 2, Foreign Empire and
the Creation of Latin America
M, Jan 27: The
international system and Latin American independence; plus Mexican wars: U.S.
& France
W, Jan 29: Class
discussion of readings, led by instructor
F, Jan 31: NO CLASS
Readings:
John Leddy Phelan,
“Pan-Latinism, French Intervention in Mexico (1861-1867) and the genesis of the
idea of Latin America,” in Conciencia y
autenticidad históricas: escritos en homenaje a Edmundo O’Gorman, J. Ortega
y Medina, ed., Mexico City, UNAM, 1968.
Leslie Bethell, “Brazil
and ‘Latin America,’” Journal of Latin
American Studies 42, 457-485.
Discussion: How has empire
shaped the concept of Latin America?
Week 3, The Rise of the
United States
M, Feb 3: Video: The Gringo in Mañanaland
W, Feb 5: Primary document
analysis: Latin America in Caricature
F, Feb 7: The Rise of the
US: Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico
Readings:
Rabe, The Killing Zone, “Roots of Cold War Interventions,” pp. 1-20
Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, pp. 1-161
Week 4: New Strategies for
Informal Empire
M, Feb. 10: The Good
Neighbor Policy
W, Feb. 12: Debate
F, Feb. 14: Pan-Americanism
in Wartime
Reading:
Gobat, Confronting the American Dream, 1-17,
150-280
Debate: U.S. intervention
left a dictatorship in Nicaragua, not a democracy. Was this the result of
intended or unintended consequences at work?
Week 5: Pan-Americanism
M, Feb. 17: NO CLASSES
W, Feb. 19: Movie: Saludos Amigos
F, Feb. 21: Debate
Readings:
Rabe, The Killing Zone, “The Kennan Corollary,” pp. 21-35
“The alliance for
modernization,” pp. 109-136 and “Resistance communities,” 137-159 in Thomas
O’Brien, The Revolutionary Mission:
American Enterprise in Latin America, 1900-1945, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996).
Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream, 162-234
Debate: Should the Good
Neighbor Policy be a model for today’s inter-American relations?
Week 6: Guatemala
M, Feb. 24: The Origins of
Latin America’s Cold War
W, Feb. 26: Bananas and
Empire
F, Feb. 28: Debate
Rabe, Killing Zone, “Guatemala—The Mother of Interventions,” 36-58
Cullather, Secret History
Debate: What was the most
important cause in the overthrowing of Jacobo Arbenz: U.S. government pressure
or the actions and beliefs of conservatives in Guatemala and elsewhere in Latin
America?
Week 7: Managing Empire
for Fun and Profit
M, Mar. 3: The Country
that Shouldn’t Exist: Costa Rica
W, Mar. 5: The Bolivian
Revolution
F, Mar. 7: Debate
Readings:
Kyle Longley, “Peaceful
Costa Rica, the first Battleground: The United States and the Costa Rican
Revolution of 1948,” The Americas 50,
no. 2 (October 1993): 149-175.
Steven Schwartzberg,
“Romulo Betancourt: From a Communist Anti-Imperialist to a Social Democrat with
US Support,” Journal of Latin American
Studies 29, no. 3 (October 1997): 613-665.
Patrick Iber, “‘Who will
impose democracy?’: Sacha Volman and the Contradictions of CIA Support for the
Anticommunist Left in Latin America,” Diplomatic
History.
Debate: Did the
Anti-Communist Left represent a real opportunity during the Cold War, or did
its alliance with the U.S. fatally compromise its ability to enact left-wing
change?
Week 8: The making of Cuba
M, Mar 10: Film: Triumph
of the Cuban Revolution
W, Mar. 12: The U.S., the
Cuban Revolution, and the New Left
F, Mar. 14: Icons of
Revolution
No reading this week: get together with your group to work on your
WikiLeaks projects.
Week 9, Cuba at Home and
Abroad
M, Mar. 17: Steven
Soderbergh, Che [Part II]
W, Mar. 19: Steven
Soderbergh, Che [Part II]
F, Mar. 21: Debate
Rabe, Killing Zone, “War Against Cuba,” pp. 59-84
Gleijeses, The Cuban Drumbeat
Debate: Was U.S. diplomacy
against Cuban interests more successful than Cuban diplomacy against U.S.
interests, or the other way around?
March 24-28: SPRING BREAK
Week 10: Chile
M, Mar. 31: Cold War,
internal and external
W, Apr. 2: Revisiting La Batalla de Chile
F, Apr. 4: Debate
Rabe, Killing Zone, “No More Cubas,” and “Military Dictators: Cold War
Allies,” pp. 85-143
“Project
FUBELT,” pp. 1-35, 47-48, 58-59 and “Destabilizing Democracy: The United States
and the Allende Government,” pp. 79-115, 138-139, 146-149 in Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on
Atrocity and Accountability, (New York: New Press, 2003).
Fermandois,
Joaquin. “The persistence of a myth:
Chile in the eye of the Cold War hurricane.”
World Affairs 167, no. 3
(Winter 2005), 101-112.
Tanya
Harmer, “Brazil’s Cold War in the Southern Cone, 1970-1975,” Cold War History 12, no. 4 (2012):
659-681.
Debate: Should Henry
Kissinger be prosecuted for crimes against humanity because of his role in
destabilizing the Allende government?
Week 11: Central America
M, Apr. 7: Nicaragua
W, Apr. 9: Guatemala
F, Apr. 11: Debate
Rabe, Killing Zone, “Cold War Horrors—Central America,” pp. 144-174
Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions, 242-255,
271-304, 312-318, 353-358, 362-368
Oñate, Andrea. “The Red
Affair: FMLN-Cuban Relations during the Salvadoran Civil War, 1981-1992,” Cold War History 11, no. 2 (2011):
133-154.
Debate: Would the outcomes
of the Central American conflicts of the 1980s have been different in the
absence of outside interference?
Week 12: Transnational Crime
in Latin America
M, Apr. 14: Colombia
W, Apr. 16: Mexico
F, Apr. 18: Debate
Grillo, El Narco, pp. 109-291
Debate: Should the U.S.
legalize drugs in order to lessen the suffering associated with cartelized
trade?
Week 13: WikiLeaks Group
Projects
M, Apr. 21: Group
presentations
W, Apr. 23: Group
presentations
F, Apr. 25: Group
presentations
Week 14: Latin America and
the World
M, Apr. 28: ALBA diplomacy
W, Apr. 30: Another BRIC
in the Wall
F, May 2: Summing up
Rabe, Killing Zone, “Aftermath,” 175-195
More readings will be
announced, based on current events
RRR Week, May 5-9, may feature group presentations if necessary.
Final Exam: Tuesday May 13, 7-10PM
