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 Civil Society: The Origins of Latin American Studies in the Netherlands

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Between Academia and Civil Society: The Origins of Latin American Studies in the Netherlands
by Michiel Baud


Dutch Latin American studies as a field of academic teaching and research emerged in the late 1960s and became consolidated in the 1970s and 1980s. It began as a purely academic endeavor, but in a changing Dutch and global society in the 1970s it rapidly became connected to and influenced by social and political processes in Latin America. The strong Christian and social-democratic traditions in the Netherlands allowed for strong links between academic researchers and civil society organizations. This resulted in the productive coexistence of academic and more political objectives and activities and allowed Dutch Latin American studies to grow into a dynamic field. A review of this experience calls attention to the importance of local conditions for understanding the consequences of the Cold War for academic research.

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 Latin American Challenge to U.S. Scholarship in Latin America

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The Latin American Challenge to U.S. Scholarship in Latin America
by Ronald H. Chilcote


[Ronald H. Chilcote, a founder and the managing editor of Latin American Perspectives since its beginning, has concentrated his fieldwork on Latin America, especially Brazil, and its ties to the Iberian Peninsula and in 1960 and 1961 studied at the University of Lisbon and University of Madrid. In Lisbon he wrote journalistic pieces on the Portuguese opposition to the Salazar dictatorship and made contacts with African students who fled to Paris and eventually joined liberation movements in the Portuguese colonies. Eventually he wrote a book, Portuguese Africa (1967), and was elected a fellow of the African Studies Association (ASA). His African work led to a Portuguese ban on his work and any return to Portugal. Thus he turned to Brazil and became involved in the early formation of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). With Martin Legassick (1971) he published a critique of the elitism and biases of the ASA after disruptions at its 1969 international conference in Montreal.

In 1973 he published the following critique of LASA, which includes coverage of its founding in 1966, its first national conference in 1968, and the significant changes after its 1970 national conference in Washington, DC. This critique originally appeared in URLA Newsletter just prior to the third LASA conference in Madison in May 1973 and after the conference in the LASA Newsletter (June 1973). We reproduce it here because it reflects the generational conflict among Latin Americanists and the changes since 1966 that were shaping LASA at the time.]

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.