This course surveys the post-independence history of Latin America from the early nineteenth century to the present. Specific emphasis is given to the ways in which men and women of all ethnic backgrounds participated in nation-building and hence to the shaping of their daily lives. To test this thesis the activity of creole elites, presidents, caudillos, intellectuals, and artists will be analyzed alongside that of indigenous people, Afro-Latin Americans, slum-dwellers, peasants, and transmigrant workers. This multiethnic conversation will be followed through independence, caudillo rule, progress and modernization, populism, revolution, the Cold War, and neoliberal reforms. To analyze larger themes characteristic of the region, lectures and seminars will primarily concentrate on Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.