Modernization Of Modernity, And Modernizations In Latin America

For decades, the history of Latin America has been shrouded in a cover of Spanish glory and myth that misleads and complicates the views of historians everywhere. Myths such as the relationship between natives and conquistadors, and the individuality of the conquistadors themselves stand as only a few examples of how this history may have become broken and distorted. However, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall goes to great lengths to dispel these myths and provide a more accurate history of Latin American, in a readable and enjoyable book.

Early 1500s Spanish explorers “discovered” and established colonies in several now Latin American countries. Over time, fellow European countries followed suit and ventured to the “New World”. As Latin America’s natural resources started to deplete from European demands, its precious people and lush lands were depleted as well. Today, Latin America is still struggling to recuperate from Europe’s invasion and now Western capitalism. However, Latin America seems have been silenced by the world, therefore their story is rarely heard. This inspired famed Uruguayan author, Eduardo Galeano, to write Open Veins of Latin America. In this critically acclaimed novel, Galeano illustrates Latin America’s struggle under European and American societies and capitalism. Eduardo Galeano meticulously criticizes these societies for exploitation of Latin America countries, peoples, and landscape.

We often villainize the countries of Latin America, making them out as lands filled with violent, less civilized, poor people. Those who are uneducated about Latin America and the culture may apply the things they know about one culture in Latin America or the Caribbean to other countries in the area. We don’t realize that some of the stereotypes are directly influenced by the legacies left by European colonialism. Scholars studying colonialism have determined five colonial legacies that are seen in many post-colonial countries. These colonial legacies are authoritarian government, power of the Roman Catholic Church, a social hierarchy, economic dependency, and the large landed estate. In the film Pelo Malo, Junior, a young boy from a

Within this essay I am going to compare and contrast two rather different nationalist ideas that prevailed in Latin America during the nineteenth century. My concentration in this comparison is on how ethnicity and race are illustrated. The first nationalist thinker whose ideas I intent to discuss is the Cuban national hero José Martí, a precursor of Latin American modernism. I will contrast Martí’s ideas and writings with the Peruvian journalist and political philosopher José Carlos Mariátegui, the representative and advocator of twentieth century Latin American Marxist ideas. There are some similarities between the offered social solutions between these authors: mainly their rejection of imported models of society and politics. However, within this essay I am arguing that the humanistic points of view between them have little in common. Whereas Martí promotes acceptance of all people and all races, and considers all people equal to each other, Mariátegui, despite claiming to be racially indifferent and accepting, in fact reveals racist and discriminating arguments that undermine his claimed acceptance and embracement of the different races of America. To support my argument, I will be offering relevant examples from both authors’ most famous publications, Martí’s ‘Nuestra América’ and ‘Mi Raza’, and Mariátegui’s ‘Siete ensayos de interpretación sobre la realidad peruana’, and ‘El problema de las razas en América Latina’.

Nowadays the media is responsible for accomplishing many everyday tasks, such as it provides news, entertainment, lessons etc. In Peru, the media has a major impact in the lives of the people that have access to it. Being underdeveloped, the media affects people different than it does here. Jose Alarcon, wrote the contestant to give the reader an idea of how the media functions in Peru. He does this by establishing critical themes that are present throughout the essay, for example, money, fame, and emotion to explain how it led to Ruth Thalia Sanchez’s death. He presents the reader that the media can lead to a series of misfortunate events leading up to the protagonist’s death. This essay shows us the amount of power and influence TV shows; the news and radio stations have.

In Latin American history in Latin America: Its Problems and Its Promise: A Multidisciplinary Introduction Knippers Black, along with several authors, has compiled a survey that introduces the reader to the most basic and interesting qualities of Latin America. The textbook analyzes the lasting qualities of the area, and the pace and track

After decades of fighting for their independence, the newly formed countries of the New World were now free to do as they pleased. The problem was, no one truly knew what to expect. This essay uses the books The Poverty of Progress by E. Bradford Burns and The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, to analyze Latin American during its national period. The post-independence nineteenth and twentieth centuries are crucial to understanding the core of Latin America, and how it came to be what it is today. Latin American during this period was filled with transcendental changes as well as various continuous patterns regarding political, economic, cultural, and social structures.

Describe how Latin America, its history, culture, socio-political construction and backdrop enter into this chapter.

Chasteen’s decision to title his book Born in Blood and Fire may at first appear to be a gross generalization of Latin America’s incredibly unique and diverse history. With hundreds of languages spoken by the indigenous tribes, each with their own unique culture and lifestyles, as well as people descended from African slaves, European colonists, or any combination of the three, one might believe Chasteen’s title to be inappropriate. Latin America as we know it today, however, was truly born in blood and fire -- colonization and genocide at the hands of European capitalists forms the basis of a contemporary, unified Latin American history, one in which almost every Latin American nation has since had a similar path. European conquest was a shared

Levitsky, Steven, and Kenneth M. Roberts. The Resurgence of the Latin American Left. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2011. Print.

Legalism as a cornerstone of Latin American norms has effectively shaped the relationship between how these states relate to each other and the world. According to Arie Kacowicz, it was considered honorable for a country to meet its lawful commitments “not divorced from considerations of national interests such as prestige and reputation.” When a region’s identity relies so much on traditional legacies, the trend is to lean towards the accepted norms that culturally tie the region. In its simplest terms, norms are standards of behavior or laws that oversee the behavior of a societal block. Although, Latin America cannot be studied as a homogenous block, countries in the region vary in their alignment patterns independently of each other in an attempt to pursue self-interests. There is, however, enough of a social

There are two main phases of 20th century Latin American revolutions (Wickham-Crowley 215). This chapter will be largely divided up by analyzing the theories of those two phases. The first wave started with the Cuban Revolution in 1956 and ended around the 1970s when movements began to move away from the foco theory. Most of the concepts behind movements in this time period revolve around Castroism, the foco theory, and classical Marxism. All of these ideas tie to each other in many ways, but also add to existing ideas of social movement theories. The influence that the Cuban Revolution had on Latin American movements in this time period cannot be stressed enough. Each of these components of the first phase of the revolution are vital to the

Since the beginning of the United States' intervention within the affairs of Latin American politics in the beginning of the twentieth century, and since the advent of a U.S. effort towards the "modernization" of Latin America, influences aimed at empowering communities and bringing about democratic movements among Latin American countries have been accompanied by various forms of exploitation and cultural decimation (Leonard, 1999). Efforts at modernization of Latin America have been carried out partly in opposition to the influence IberoCatholic culture (of Spain) which is reported to "deprive the Latin Americans of the essential tools for progress: a future vision, a work ethic, the importance of education, a reward for merit, a sense

As well as his own theoretical and epistemological proposal is an eclectic one, Martín Barbero’s influences are an intellectual hybridity of some European and Latin American thinkers, mixing philosophers and writers and historians. Indeed, a significative contribution of Martin Barbero’s work is he introduces into the Latin American scholarly debate some authors and re-signifies them in relation to the specificities of the theoretical and epistemological perspectives in communication and culture within the regional debate. As Guillermo Sunkel points out, “he introduces a perspective that, back in then, thirty years ago or so, was so innovative” .

Latin America sums up to a region where cultures have combined and collided. Inca civilization is one among several that have flourished for a long time. Before the Europeans arrived in 1400s most of Latin America was controlled by Portugal and Spain for a period longer than 300 years. They forced a new religion, new languages and new laws onto the inhabitants of the region. However, the native culture survived by blending it in with the conqueror. Currently the custom, costumes and faces of most Latin American’s reveal the mixed heritage; it is a region of developing countries.