This course surveys the history of Latin America from the late fifteenth century to the present. The colonial era will be examined in the first three weeks by concentrating on the encounter between Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans. Colonialism will be presented as a multiethnic conversation, one that was filled with violence and informed by power relations, but one that also saw all ethnic groups participating in the formation of colonial societies and hence to the general shape of Spanish and Portuguese rule. The modern period of Latin America will be studied in the final three weeks by focusing on the ways in which all ethnic groups participated in the process of nation building. Given that the region experienced roughly three hundred years of European colonialism before it splintered into individual countries, the various legacies of the colonial era will be followed in race relations, artistic developments, politics, and culture.