This introductory course will cover the difficult process of nation-building that twenty-odd societies south of the Rio Grande experienced during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand most references in Calle 13's song "Latinoamerica." Latin America became a space where questions of modernity and progress intersected with science and development. Foreign influence, intellectual, physical, and commercial, played a considerable role and many voices continued to be marginalized. As the twentieth century progressed, development strategies, shifting racial and gender norms, and the Cold War radically impacted the region's more modern history. We will explore these moments through a variety of traditional and less conventional primary and secondary sources. 

This introductory course will cover the difficult process of nation-building that twenty-odd societies south of the Rio Grande experienced during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the end of the course, students should be able to understand most references in Calle 13's song "Latinoamerica." Latin America became a space where questions of modernity and progress intersected with science and development. Foreign influence, intellectual, physical, and commercial, played a considerable role and many voices continued to be marginalized. As the twentieth century progressed, development strategies, shifting racial and gender norms, and the Cold War radically impacted the region's more modern history. We will explore these moments through a variety of traditional and less conventional primary and secondary sources.