15249 - History and Institutions of Latin America

Learning outcomes

The course is designed as a basic tool for understanding the history and contemporary Latin American politics. Its key objectives are: to provide the structural elements of economic and political geography of Latin America, with particular attention to the heterogeneity of the region and ensure a general approach on the main stages of contemporary Latin American history. At the end of the course the student should be able to find a key to understanding the history of Latin America that allows him to establish the largest possible number of parallels with the Western European history .

Course contents

Political and social history of Latin America from the age of independence to date

Readings/Bibliography

Compulsory basic text:

L.Zanatta, Storia dell'America Latina contemporanea, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2010

 

For the oral part of the exam students are required to study two books chosen from the following:

Anderson, Jon Lee, Che: una vita rivoluzionaria, Baldini & Castoldi, Milano 1998.

Fábio De Castro, Kees Koonings and Marianne Wiesebron, Brazil under the Workers' party : continuity and change from Lula to Dilma, Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

De Giuseppe, Massimo, La rivoluzione messicana, il Mulino 2013.

Carlos de la Torre and Cynthia J. Arnson, Latin American populism in the 21. Century, Washington, D.C. : Woodrow Wilson press ; Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University press, 2013, XII, 398 p. ; 23 cm.

Edgar J. Dosman, La vida y la época de Raúl Prebisch, 1901-1986, Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2010

Paulo Drinot and Alan Knight editors, The Great depression in Latin America, Durham ; London : Duke University press, 2014

Sebastian Edwards, Left behind: Latin America and the false promise of populism,
Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 2010

Haslam, Jonathan, The Nixon administration and the death of Allende's Chile: a case of assisted suicide, London; New York: Verso, 2005.

Novaro, Marcos, La dittatura argentina, Carocci, Roma 2005.

Pérez-Stable, Marifeli, The Cuban revolution: origins, course, and legacy, 2nd ed., New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.

Santiso, Javier, Latin Americas political economy of the possible: beyond good revolutionaries and free-marketeers, Cambridge – London, MIT Press, 2006.

Zanatta, Loris, Eva Perón. Una biografia politica, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 2009

Zanatta, Loris, La nazione cattolica. Chiesa e dittatura nell'Argentina di Bergoglio, Laterza 2014.

Kurt Weyland, Raul L. Madrid, Wendy Hunter, Leftist governments in Latin America: successes and shortcomings, Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2010.

Teaching methods

Lectures

Assessment methods

The examination will consist of two written exams during the course plus one oral exam at the end of the course on the last part of the program and the two monographs identified by the student.

Teaching tools

No tools

Office hours

See the website of Loris Zanatta