Latin American History II
Final Examination Study Questions
Final Exam Study Sheet

The final examination will be begin promptly at 8:00am on Monday, May 17, 2004, in TYD 0103 (our normal lecture room). The exam will last two hours.

A review session has been scheduled for Wednesday, May 12, from 10:00-12:00pm in TWS 2102. Bring your questions, comments, and trial answers.

I. Identifications (20% of exam grade)

1. Analyze the origins of the Doctrine of National Security and Development and critically assess the doctrine's impact on the political economy of the Southern Cone in the post-WWII period.
2. If the post-1929 period is characterized by a prevailing rhetoric of nationalism, numerous international actors (e.g., the Central Intelligence Agency, the International Monetary Fund, Amnesty International, Marxist-Leninist thought, the Kennecott Copper Company, rock and roll music) have deeply influenced national politics and culture throughout Latin America. Critically analyze the influence of international actors in the "national" life of one Latin American country.
3. Critically explain why urban, middle-class youth culture was so disruptive to Mexican society after 1950. Pay close attention to tensions in gender ideology, family relations, and the supposed breakdown of buenas costumbres in the process of Mexican modernization.
4. Compare and contrast the nineteenth-century caudillo and the twentieth-century populist. How is each figure a product of his time and society?
5. The worldwide economic crisis of the 1929 profoundly transformed Latin America, giving rise to nationalist political economies that rejected key aspects of nineteenth-century liberalism, including laissez-faire economic policy-making, export-led growth, and limited workers' rights. Critically describe why the crisis of 1929 contributed to the rise of state interventionism, import substitution industrialization, and populist labor policy.
6. Critically identify and explain the major arguments provided by historians to understand the "popular" nature of the Mexican Revolution and the consolidation of the post-revolutionary State. Your essay should conclude with an argument about which of the major historiographic interpretations of the Mexican Revolution you find most convincing.
7. Critically assess how nineteenth-century notions of indigenous barbarism, the struggle between superior and inferior races, and scientific racism shifted into twentieth-century notions of eugenics, racial democracy, mestizaje, and indigenismo. Draw upon the assigned readings.
8. What historical factors explain why the military regimes that emerged during the Cold War presented themselves as "legitimate" forms of government even as they practiced systematic extralegal acts of terror and human rights abuse?

NOTES

You will be allowed to bring in ONE 5x8 notecard, filled with whatever information you would like. The card must be turned in with your exam.

You will be asked to sign the Honor Pledge.

The final exam represents 25% of your final grade.