Chapter 9

Dictators and Revolutions

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 9, you should be able to:

1. Analyze the causes of the economic stagnation that afflicted many of the new states following independence.
2. Describe the forms and the realities of the republican political system of most of the new states.
3. Analyze the Conservative-Liberal cleavage and the political, socioeconomic, and ideological alignments it represented.
4. Apply this analysis to the history of the four states covered in this chapter.

Chapter Summary

The chapter opens with a general survey of the aftermath of the wars of independence, noting the failure of those wars to effect major changes in the colonial economic and social structures. The causes of the economic stagnation and political instability that characterized many nations after independence are explored. In describing the republican political system adopted by most of the new states, emphasis is placed on the gap between the system's theory and how it was put into practice. There follows an analysis of the Conservative-Liberal cleavage that dominated political life and its roots in the conflicting interests and ideals of various elite groups. The remainder of the chapter applies this analysis to the history of four leading states--Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil--in the first half-century after independence.

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.