The course will begin with the response of Latin America to international economic expansion in the late nineteenth century, and the social changes, emerging out of the interaction of Latin America’s economies with international economic trends, which induced rapid urbanization and impacted manufacturing capabilities, ideological change, social legislation, and labour organization. It will continue with the attempt by Latin Americans to redefine their nationality in terms of indigenous tradition and indigenous philosophies, and in terms of Marxist analysis, socialist movements, and responses to US imperialism. The course will also examine the long-term effect of import-substitution industrialization (ISI), and the oil and debt crisis of the 1980s upwards.