Korean Job Discussion Forums

[excitinghead]

I haven't so much as picked up a book about Latin America in about in 7 years, so I'm hardly knowledgeable anymore (although I still get to read the Economist's rants on Chavez every week), but I remember that I studied some colonial history because Chile's and Argentina's different trade patterns for instance, produced vastly different politics later on. After that I was into the wars of liberation because I was into theories of nationalism and Benedict Anderson thought they were the first proper nation-states, and then later I studied all the bureacratic-authoritarian states and all that jazz of course. I used Dietrich Rueschemeyer's book "Capitalist Development and Democracy" for much of the 20th Century stuff (link below), and as I think it's one of the best political studies books ever, let alone on Latin America, I bought a copy as soon as I got my first paycheque in Korea.

But my real interest was in the revolutions in Central America, which I could still talk about for days. Learning the American government paid Contras to blow up hospitals and schools in Nicaragua would get any 20-something interested of course, but I actually primarily became interested because as a teenager my lecturer used to bomb police stations in Argentina, then after some training in Cuba fought for the Sandanistas in the late '70s, then left them when they became hard-core Marxist-Leninists, and joined the non blowing up of schools faction of the contras to get rid of them. Finding he was fighting Oliver North's guys more often than the Sandanistas he left...and became under-secretary for Latin American affairs in the Reagan Administration.

Sure, it all sounds like bullshit typing it here, but even if only 1/8th of his stories were true it was pretty inspiring stuff. That's why I really was all set to go to Nicaragua after coming here!

http://www.librarything.com/work/379815/book/18834744

[postfundie]

[bucheon bum]

[Vicissitude]

MA in Education and Humanities. I studied the Italian Renaissance and (English) Medieval History. My research was based on women of those periods. Oftentimes, women were left out of important historical accounts, which has lead to a plethora of misinformation and untruths that are routinely written and taught in classrooms today.