Chapter 14

The Chilean Way

The following material is designed to help you sort out the major themes and important information in our textbook Benjamin Keen, A History of Latin America, 5^th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996). You will be quizzed over this material in class. Also use this information as a study guide to prepare for the exam.

Learning Objectives

After you have read and studied Chapter 14, you should be able to:

1. Discuss and assess the role of the export sector in Chilean history.
2. Describe the Chilean agrarian structure and its economic and social consequences.
3. Outline Chile's modern political history.
4. Discuss Chile's socialist experiment and cite the reasons for its defeat.

Chapter Summary

The chapter opens with a survey of Chilean economic history from 1900 to 1970, stressing the negative impact of the dominant export sector and a highly skewed agrarian structure on Chilean development and welfare. Chile's political history in the same period is then summarized, noting the complex political alignments and the failure of successive regimes to achieve economic and social reform. The chapter concludes with an account of the Allende government's effort to achieve socialism by peaceful means in the period from 1970 to 1973, its overthrow by a military coup and the installation of a fascist military dictatorship, and the recent restoration of democracy under conservative auspices, and the essential continuity of economic and sucine policies under the fascist and democratic regimes.

Identification Terms

Be sure that you are able to identify and explain the historical significance of each of each of these terms from this chapter.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. This material is presented as a study guide exclusively for the use of students in Latin American History at Illinois State University. Please direct any questions to Marc Becker at mbecker@ilstu.edu.