The histories of the United States and Latin America have been closely intertwined. Why has the U.S. government intervened in the region, and with what consequences? How have Latin Americans responded? This course examines U.S. motives and actions in Latin America, which for our purposes includes the Caribbean as well. We will assess the role of the U.S.
H- Latam / CLAH Best Syllabus Prize
The Teaching Committee of the CLAH has partnered with an anonymous donor to offer a prize for the best syllabus posted to H-Latam. The value of the prize has been increased to $300. If the project is deemed successful after a five-year period (in 2021), the donor has promised to provide a permanent endowment to grant the prize annually.
If you want drama and tragedy, then you will certainly get plenty of that in this course. History 331 presents the story of Poland, a country that was restored to the map in 1918 after more than a century of foreign occupation, only to fall to a joint attack by Hitler and Stalin in 1939, endure five years at the very deepest circle of the Nazi hell, and then be “liberated” by a Soviet puppet government that ruled with an iron fist for four more decades. Through all this tribulation there were many attempts at liberation and reform, so this course will offer plenty of heroes.
The twentieth century, Lenin once predicted, would be remembered as a century of revolution. Perhaps nowhere did this forecast prove more accurate than in central Europe, which between 1917 and 1992 witnessed arguably no fewer than eight revolutionary episodes. Of course, these events did not unfold in quite the way Lenin envisaged; in the same way that central Europe became a laboratory for competing ideologies of the twentieth century, so it became the birthplace and testing ground of new styles of revolution and resistance.
Throughout its existence, Yugoslavia was among the most complex countries in Europe. Uniting Catholic Croats and Slovenes, Orthodox Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, and a variety of less numerous peoples, Yugoslavia provided at various times in its history a model of synergetically integrated diversity as well as horrific examples of civil war and genocide.
Europe began in Vienna. Of all the historic states and empires that preceded today's European Union, the Habsburg Monarchy was arguably the most "European"—bringing together numerous nationalities and confessions in a single community under a non-national government for nearly three centuries, despite overwhelming odds. This course examines how such a conglomeration of disparate peoples and territories held together for so long, and how its cultural diversity provided the incubus for renowned achievements in art, music, science, gastronomy, and politics.
This is a course on the postwar history of Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. Historically and culturally, these four countries all belong to "Central Europe," but from the late 1940s to the early 1990s they were politically part of "the East." What distinguishes this region, in other words, are its historical ties to the West on one hand, and its experience of Communism on the other. Since 1989 a generation has passed and the region has been fully re-integrated into the West.
This course provides an introduction to the turbulent twentieth-century history of what used to be called "Eastern" Europe. It was a diverse region where over twenty languages were spoken and seven major religions practiced, where today there lie thirteen to twenty-six independent countries (depending how one counts). During the twentieth century it was a testing ground for social engineers and a battleground between conflicting empires and ideologies.
This course “examines events in selected countries of Europe between the First and Second World Wars. Lectures and readings will consider many aspects of European life, with an emphasis on political, economic, and social issues. In each section, the focus will be on how states cultivated or failed at maintaining representative democracy.”
