History 251
Latin American History II
Midterm Study Sheet
The midterm will be held during the normal lecture hour on Wednesday,
March 1, 2001. This will be a closed-note examination.
An optional review session has been scheduled for Monday, March 12,
2001, 5:00pm-6:45pm in FSK 1117. The review session will not be a lecture.
You will not be told the "right" answers. Instead, we will discuss the
midterm questions, resolving doubts and testing out trial answers. It is
your responsibility to prepare for the review session prior to coming.
The review session will only be useful if you and your classmates contribute.
The midterm will be divided into two parts:
Part I: Identifications (30%)
You will be given five terms drawn from key vocabulary raised in lecture
and the assigned readings since the beginning of the semester. You must
answer three (and no more than three) of the five options, defining the
term within its proper historical context.
Part II: Essay (70%)
In the opening pages to the fifth chapter of Born in Blood and Fire,
John Chasteen asserts:
Liberal dreams of prosperous, progressive new countries soon dissolved
in disappointment and economic failure. Hopes for true democracy were crushed
by old habits of conservative hierarchy. Recurring patterns of political
violence and corruption alienated most people from the governments that
supposedly represented them. Politics became, above all, a quest for personal
benefit in office. In sum, the first postcolonial generation (1825-1850)
saw Latin America going nowhere fast.
Consider carefully Chasteen's pessimistic interpretation of postindependent
Latin America. Think specifically about the four themes of illiberalism
identified in the passage:
-
economic failure
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the persistence of conservative, anti-democratic social habits
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the significance of violence in denying the people a sense of connection
with representative governments
-
the emergence of corrupt and self-serving political elites
On the midterm, you will given the Chasteen passage, exactly as it appears
here, and two of the four themes listed above. You will have to choose
ONE theme and develop an argument that weighs the strengths and weaknesses
of Chasteen's argument about the failure of liberalism during the first
generation of postcolonial Latin America. Justify your argument with the
concepts, events, people, and primary sources covered in lectures, discussions,
and the assigned reading.
HIST 251 Homepage
Email: Professor Williams
Email: Yamile Regalado