US & Latin Amer-20th Century - 4095 - HIST 610G – 01
Twentieth-Century Latin America - 4096 - HIST 618G - 01
| Summer 2026 WWW online Class Meetings: Tues, June 30 and following Mondays, 6:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. on zoom |
Marc Becker |
Description
This course covers major events and trends in twentieth-century Latin American history with emphasis on the development of oral and written reporting techniques including the writing of an historiographic paper.
Readings (see class schedule below)
We will start with three historiographic essays (pdfs on discussion board on Brightspace) to bring you up to speed on the field of Latin American history and to give you a model for the type of essay I would like you to write in this seminar We will then continue with reading the following books in this order. Because the reading is intense and the class compact, you will want to start reading these books in advance:
Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (New York: Scribner, 2021)
Carollee Bengelsdorf and Susan Meiselas, Clandestinas: women in the Cuban revolutionary underground, 1955-1959 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2025).
Jacob Blanc, The Prestes column: an interior history of modern Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 2024).
Erika Pani, Torn asunder: Republican crises and civil wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2025).
Aaron Coy Moulton, Caribbean blood pacts: Guatemala and the Cold War struggle for freedom (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2025).
Alan L. McPherson, The breach: Iran-Contra and the assault on American democracy (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2025).
Katherine M. Marino, Feminism for the Americas: the making of an international human rights movement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
Lisa G. Materson, Radical solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, political allyship, and the battle for Puerto Rico's independence (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2024).
Stephanie Mitchell, ed. Women's Suffrage in the Americas (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2024).
Assignments and grades
Grades are calculated out of a percentage total possible points for the class: 90-100 percent is an A, 80-89 is a B, 70-79 is a C, and 60-69 is a D. Below 60 percent is an F. Successful completion of all assignments is required to receive credit for this class.
Reading responses: For the introductory historiographic essays and each book, post a summary of the reading and your assessment of the author’s use of sources and argument to the discussion board on Brightspace (due by midnight the day before we discuss the book). Address the following questions in your essay:
- What argument is the author advancing?
- What reasons does the author give for advancing this argument?
- What evidence is provided to support these reasons?
- How does the work fit into the general historiography of Latin America?
Identify elements of/passages from the reading that substantiate your conclusions. 1 pt. each.
Reflection: After each class period post to the discussion board on Brightspace an analysis of classroom discussions for each reading, including an explanation of how you might fit this reading into the historiographic essay due at the end of the class (by midnight the day after we discuss the book). 1 pt. each.
Class discussion leader: Lead the discussion on one of the books plus one of the chapters in Mitchell’s edited volume, including organizing the reading responses from the discussion posts in Brightspace into a logical flow. Post your discussion questions to the shared google drive before class. 5 pts each (10 pts total).
Historiographic essay: Write a paper reviewing all of the texts assigned for this course. The paper should address at a minimum the following questions for each of the assigned texts:
- What argument is being advanced by the author?
- What reasons does the author give for advancing this argument?
- What evidence is provided to support these reasons?
- How does the work fit into general Latin American historiography?
You should identify elements of/passages from the reading that substantiate your conclusions. Bring these texts into discussion with each other, and present your own assessment and evaluation of their claims (your thesis or central argument). The essay should be double spaced and about 20-pages long, and must include footnotes or endnotes and bibliography and the style must conform to that found in Turabian/Rampolla/Chicago Manual of Style. Papers submitted without page numbers will be docked half a letter grade. The papers are due on July 31, 5p.m. 100 pts.
Class Schedule
Week 1 (Tues, June 30): Introductions/historiography
Alan Knight, “Introduction Part Two: Forty Years of Latin American—Especially Mexican—History,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 27, no. 1 (2021): 10-20.
Tanya Harmer and Alberto Martín Álvarez, “Introduction: Globalizing Latin America’s Revolutionary Left; Historiography, Approaches, and Context,” in Toward a global history of Latin America's revolutionary left, ed. Tanya Harmer and Alberto Martín Álvarez (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2021), 1-26.
Michelle Chase, “Beyond the ‘Historiographical Monroe Doctrine’: The Latin American Left and the World,” Latin American Research Review 59, no. 3 (September 2024): 770-82.
Week 2 (Mon, July 6): Revolutions
Ada Ferrer, Cuba: An American History (New York: Scribner, 2021).
Carollee Bengelsdorf and Susan Meiselas, Clandestinas: women in the Cuban revolutionary underground, 1955-1959 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2025).
Jacob Blanc, The Prestes column: an interior history of modern Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 2024).
Week 3 (Mon, July 13): US-Latin America relations
Erika Pani, Torn asunder: Republican crises and civil wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2025).
Aaron Coy Moulton, Caribbean blood pacts: Guatemala and the Cold War struggle for freedom (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2025).
Alan L. McPherson, The breach: Iran-Contra and the assault on American democracy (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2025).
Week 4 (Mon, July 20): Gender
Katherine M. Marino, Feminism for the Americas: the making of an international human rights movement (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019).
Lisa G. Materson, Radical solidarity: Ruth Reynolds, political allyship, and the battle for Puerto Rico's independence (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2024).
Stephanie Mitchell, ed. Women's Suffrage in the Americas (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2024).
Week 5 (Mon, July 27): Review
Essay due: Fri, July 31, 5p.m.