2020-21 Academic Catalog

Cycles of revolutionary upheaval and counterrevolutionary violence punctuated Latin America’s tumultuous twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This course compares “successful” revolutions (Cuba [1959], Nicaragua [1979]) with “unsuccessful” (Bolivia [1952], Chile [1970]) and abortive (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru in the 1970s and 1980s) attempts at revolutionary change. We will examine questions including, why do revolutionary outbreaks occur? Why do revolutionaries take power in some countries and fail in others? How can we explain (counter-)revolutionary mobilization, violence, and terror? Do revolutions produce enduring social change, or reproduce enduring problems? What do Latin America’s revolutionary legacies mean for twenty-first century politics?