From Silver to Cocaine: Commodities, Capitalism, & Natural Resources in Latin America

Catalog description

This course explores Latin America’s long history of natural resource exploitation, from colonial times to the present. It examines the different ways empires, states, and corporations promoted the extraction of minerals, the transformation of the soil, and the generation of fuel and electric power for exports. From the silver of the Potosí mines to the rubber boom in the Amazonas and the more recent cocaine trade, you will learn about Latin America through the lenses of labor exploitation, extractivism, and environmental transformation.