Transnational solidarity movements often play an important role in reshaping structures of global power. Jessica Stites Mor looks at four in-depth case studies in the Global South, which act as a much-needed road map to navigate our current political climate and show us how solidarity movements might approach future struggles.
This volume showcases new research on the global reach of Latin American revolutionary movements during the height of the Cold War, mapping out the region’s little-known connections with Africa, Asia, and Europe. Toward a Global History of Latin America’s Revolutionary Left offers insights into the effect of international collaboration on the identities, ideologies, strategies, and survival of organizers and groups. Featuring contributions from historians working in six different countries, this collection includes chapters on Cuba’s hosting of the 1966 Tricontinental Conference that brought revolutionary movements together; Czechoslovakian intelligence’s logistical support for revolutionaries; the Brazilian Left’s search for recognition in Cuba and China; the central role played by European publishing houses in disseminating news from Latin America; Italian support for Brazilian guerrilla insurgents; Spanish ties with Nicaragua’s revolution; and the solidarity of European networks with Guatemala’s Guerrilla Army of the Poor. Through its expansive geographical perspectives, this volume positions Latin America as a significant force on the international stage of the 1960s and 1970s. It sets a new research agenda that will guide future study on leftist movements, transnational networks, and Cold War history in the region. Contributor:s José Manuel Ágreda Portero | Van Gosse | James G. Hershberg | Gerardo Leibner | Blanca Mar León | Eduardo Rey Tristán | Arturo Taracena Arriola | Michal Zourek
As bloody wars raged in Central America during the last third of the twentieth century, hundreds of North American groups “adopted” villages in war-torn Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Unlike government-based cold war–era Sister City programs, these pairings were formed by ordinary people, often inspired by individuals displaced by US-supported counterinsurgency operations. Drawing on two decades of work with former refugees from El Salvador as well as unprecedented access to private archives and oral histories, Molly Todd’s compelling history provides the first in-depth look at “grassroots sistering.” This model of citizen diplomacy emerged in the mid-1980s out of relationships between a few repopulated villages in Chalatenango, El Salvador, and US cities. Todd shows how the leadership of Salvadorans and left-leaning activists in the US concerned with the expansion of empire as well as the evolution of human rights–related discourses and practices created a complex dynamic of cross-border activism that continues today.
The Cuban revolution served as a rallying cry to people across Latin America and the Caribbean. The revolutionary regime has provided vital support to the rest of the region, offering everything from medical and development assistance to training and advice on guerrilla warfare. Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America is the first oral history of Cuba’s liberation struggle. Drawing on a vast array of original testimonies, Dirk Kruijt looks at the role of both veterans and the post-Revolution fidelista generation in shaping Cuba and the Americas. Featuring the testimonies of over sixty Cuban officials and former combatants, Cuba and Revolutionary Latin America offers unique insight into a nation which, in spite of its small size and notional pariah status, remains one of the most influential countries in the Americas.
This definitive reader brings together seminal articles on development in Latin America. Tracing the concepts and major debates surrounding the issue, the text focuses on development theory through three contrasting historical perspectives: imperialism, underdevelopment and dependency, and globalization. By offering a rich array of essays from Latin American Perspectives, the book allows students to sample all the important trends in the field. A new general introduction and conclusion, along with part introductions, contextualize each selection. One of the leading figures in development studies, Ronald Chilcote shows in this text why work on imperialism dating to the turn of the twentieth century informs the controversies on dependency and underdevelopment during the 1960s and 1970s as well as the globalization debates of the past decade. If students are to understand development in Latin America, they must not only be familiar with historical examples and recognize that various theoretical perspectives affect our interpretation of events, they must be willing to keep an open mind. Thus, rather than setting out established premises, this reader offers different points of view, raising provocative questions about Latin America that remain largely unanswered even today. Students will come away from this rewarding collection ready to pursue new understanding through critical inquiry and thinking.
Reclaiming Latin America is a one-stop guide to the revival of social democratic and socialist politics across the region. At the end of the Cold War, and through decades of neoliberal domination and the 'Washington Consensus' it seemed that the left could do nothing but beat a ragged retreat in Latin America. Yet this book looks at the new opportunities that sprang up through electoral politics and mass action during that period. The chapters here warn against over-simplification of the so-called 'pink wave'. Instead, through detailed historical analysis of Latin America as a whole and country-specific case studies, the book demonstrates the variety of approaches to establishing a lasting social justice. From the anti-imperialism of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba, to the more gradualist routes being taken in Chile, Argentina and Brazil, Reclaiming Latin America gives a real sense of the plurality of political responses to popular discontent.
