Abstract, Latin American Studies in China during the Cold War

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Latin American Studies in China during the Cold War
by Mao Xianglin and Shi Huiye


China’s Latin American studies during the Cold War can be divided into five phases. Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai showed concern for the development of Latin American studies in China. These studies were suspended during the Great Cultural Revolution. The field developed significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, with three academic associations being established and the five major systems of Latin American studies beginning to take shape. After 2000, Sino–Latin American relations entered a new era, and the first 10 years of the century saw their rapid development, opening broad perspectives for the field.

Abstract, The Cold War and Latin American Area Studies in the Former USSR: Reflections and Reminiscences

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The Cold War and Latin American Area Studies in the Former USSR: Reflections and Reminiscences
by Russell H. Bartley


All bodies of scholarship reflect societal mindsets and ideologies. Academic fields of geopolitical area studies exemplify this fact, having developed historically in response to the global objectives and related policy requirements of major nation-states over the past century and a half. In the case of Latin American area studies, the field was given decisive impetus by the Cold War, as were the related fields of Soviet and United States studies in each of the two contending superpowers. Discussion of a representative selection of Latin Americanists in the former USSR, their varied statuses within the Soviet academic establishment, and their professional relations with their U.S counterparts and of the development of Soviet Latin American area studies from the post–World War II years down to the demise of the USSR in the early 1990s makes clear that both Soviet and American academic establishments were constrained by Cold War political imperatives and accompanying mindsets that hampered but did not preclude the pursuit and achievement of genuine scholarship.

Abstract, Between Academia and Politics: Latin American Studies in Germany during the Cold War

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Between Academia and Politics: Latin American Studies in Germany during the Cold War
by Hans-Jürgen Puhle


Latin American studies in Germany from the 1960s on developed in two waves with (partial) crises and periods of stagnation in between. Whereas in the communist GDR they were affected by the limited scope of academic endeavors and their instrumentalization for state and party politics and policies, in the Federal Republic interdisciplinary Latin American studies had two tiers (within the universities and outside as independent research institutes) and were shaped by the particular structure of funding schemes and agencies and by “triggers” such as the Cuban Revolution, the Chilean coup, the arrival of exiles, and the presence of the Latin American revolutionary experience in the debates of the West German student movement after 1968. While many of the West German features were shared with other Western countries, significant differences emerged because of Germany’s short colonial tradition, the Cold War rivalry between the Federal Republic and the GDR, and the fact that political foundations such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation played a key role not only in designing and implementing government-financed development aid projects in Latin America but also in helping to promote and shape a new takeoff for Latin American studies (a uniquely German constellation).

Abstract, Academic Entrepreneurs, Public Policy, and the Growth of Latin American Studies in Britain during the Cold War

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Academic Entrepreneurs, Public Policy, and the Growth of Latin American Studies in Britain during the Cold War
by Rory M. Miller


The initial development of Latin American studies in Britain in the early 1960s resulted from the interest of pioneering academics in London and Cambridge and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Alongside these academic efforts, the government’s concerns about the declining role of British business in the region triggered the establishment of the Parry Committee in 1962. Reporting in 1965, this committee recommended the establishment of five government-financed Latin American centers, together with investment in training new Ph.D. students, especially in the social sciences. These younger scholars, who took the opportunity to do research and travel in Latin America, soon began to react more strongly against U.S. policy, economic inequality, and human rights abuses. In the 1970s, tensions between the older and newer generations became acute with the Pinochet coup and the “dirty wars.” Many academics thus distanced themselves from business and government in a way that the pioneers had not anticipated.

Abstract, The Cold War and the Transformation of Latin American Studies in the United States

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The Cold War and the Transformation of Latin American Studies in the United States
by Ronald H. Chilcote


The Cold War assumptions of mainstream Latin American studies in the United States were challenged in the 1960s by a new generation of academics that opened up the field to progressive thinking, including Marxism. West Coast intellectuals played a major role in this transformation. These new Latin Americanists rejected the university-government-foundation nexus in the field and emphasized field research that brought them into close relationships with Latin Americans struggling for change and engaging with radical alternatives to mainstream thinking. In the course of this work, they confronted efforts to co-opt them and to discourage and even prevent their field research. Despite this they managed to transform Latin American studies into a field that was intellectually and politically vibrant both in theory and in practice.

Introduction to The Cold War and Latin American Studies

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Introduction to The Cold War and Latin American Studies


Those of us whose academic careers evolved during the Cold War have intensely experienced pressures on our approaches to teaching and research. Some of us in North American universities were affected by anticommunist hysteria, required to sign loyalty oaths and face surveillance by the FBI and the CIA. Our work on Latin America sometimes involved protests of U.S. policy and direct or covert intervention into the affairs of countries in the hemisphere. The predominant role of the United States in Latin America dates to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the nineteenth-century acquisition of territory through wars with Mexico and Spain. Academic interest in Latin America during the early twentieth century was largely shaped by diplomatic history and U.S. expansionism and imperialism. The end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War in 1945 saw the beginnings of Latin American studies as an interdisciplinary field.

Book Review, Cien Años de Lucha: Narratives of Cuba’s Revolutionary History

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Cien Años de Lucha: Narratives of Cuba’s Revolutionary History
by William M. LeoGrande

Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality

Lamrani Salim Cuba, the Media, and the Challenge of Impartiality. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2015.

The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five

Morais Fernando The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five. London: Verso, 2015.

Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape

Ritter Archibald R. M. & Henken Ted A. Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2015.

The Structure of Cuban History: Meaning and Purpose of the Past

Perez Louis A.,Jr. The Structure of Cuban History: Meaning and Purpose of the Past. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959–1979

Guerra Lillian Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959–1979. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

Revolutionary Cuba: A History

Martínez-Fernández Luis Revolutionary Cuba: A History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014.

“Revolution means . . . changing everything that must be changed,” said Fidel Castro on May 1, 2000. This slogan has become the watchword for the far-reaching changes under way since 2008, when Raúl Castro succeeded Fidel as president.1 In 2011 Cuba embarked upon a fundamental reorganization of the economy as outlined in the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution adopted at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, 2011). Then on December 17, 2014, President Castro and President Barack Obama stunned the world by announcing their agreement to begin normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations, setting aside half a century of hostility.

Political Report #1218 13 Million Pages of Declassified CIA Documents Were Just Posted Online

Political Report # 1218 These four computers were previously the only place to access CREST.  Image: Michael Best 13 Million Pages of Declassified CIA Documents Were Just Posted Online By Jason Koebler, Motherboard

A nonprofit organization, a persistent rabble-rouser, and their pro-bono attorney have succeeded in getting the Central Intelligence Agency to post the full contents of its declassified records database online, meaning it's now possible to access roughly 13 million pages of CIA documents dating back to the beginnings of the Cold War.