Few continental stories are as complex, exciting and exceptional as that of America . Whether before or after the arrival of the European conquerors, in the formation of the colonial empires that followed them, America was always a vast land in many ways still virgin of all human presence. His story is pregnant with conquest, but also with development and great civilizations.
But how to understand the enormous historical baggage of a land once disconnected from the rest of the cultures of the planet and, from one day to the next, revealed as the " New World "? Columbus' travels represent an evident before and after in the history of the American peoples, making it difficult to understand what America was like before the Europeans. His non-arrival is still one of the most interesting what ifs in history.
It does so with numerous unrelated dates. The videos help to understand the sea of uncertainty in which our knowledge of prehistoric America sails. There is no record of written records for a vast majority of civilizations that emerged in the American lands thousands of years ago, which derives much of the findings from archeology. Hence, the dates are usually approximate or generic.
At the height of the year 250, a large part of what we know today as Mexico had various political organizations that were among the first civilizations on the continent. Its development is gradual. For the next five hundred years, the Mayans will coexist with a whole host of towns, such as the Toltecs , around the Yucatan peninsula and the current lands of southern Mexico.
It will not be until the turn of the millennium when the first European contact with America ( the Vikings , in Vinland) is registered, and until the mid-fifteenth century when the main ruling economic, political and military power in North America arises until the arrival of the Spanish: the Aztecs . His legacy is immense although his existence as a short independent political figure: at the height of 1520 the Spanish conquest evaporated his empire.
From here the events happen quickly: at the height of 1600 the Spanish Empire has conquered the whole of Mexico and Central America, has entered the north of South America and is advancing towards the present lands of the United States. By then some Mayan pockets still resisted inside the viceroyalty, but colonization was an unstoppable phenomenon: England, France and the Netherlands came into play in the following centuries.
The wars that determine the current order of North America are exciting . As a result of all of them, and of the Anglo-Saxon preeminence in much of the continent, the United States arises in 1778, and the rest of the North American nations from 1800, in full decomposition of a dying Spanish Empire. The Mexican Empire inherits a large part of its lands, coming to occupy part of California, Arizona or Texas.
The 19th and 20th centuries certify the current map of North America, with small and unique episodes from nations that no longer exist such as Texas , Vermont , the Federal Republic of Central America or the Confederate States.
The one in South America follows similar courses, although its development in prehistoric years is broader: there is evidence of cultures as varied as the Chavín , the Nazca , the Moche or the Tiwanaku Empire in the long years from 900 BC. to 300 of our era. Later other Andean cultures such as Chimor or the Wari Empire would emerge , faith of the constant political and social evolution of South America.
From the fourteenth century the Empire of Cuzco appears, the germ of the almighty and determining later Inca Empire . The centuries prior to the arrival of the Spanish conquerors certified their unstoppable rise, especially from the fifteenth century. When Pizarro arrives at the lands controlled by the Incas, these extend along the Andean mountain range, in a territory that today would encompass part of Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
Its legacy is gigantic, like the Aztec, and its fall is equally rapid. Post-conquest diseases and violence irreparably decimate indigenous populations, facilitating the arrival and subsequent control of Europeans. From then on, Spain comes to control a gigantic territory that, connected with its possessions in North America, makes it the largest Empire of its time.
At the beginning of the 14th century, the Spanish colonial territory reached from Buenos Aires to present-day Mexico City, while Portugal, thanks to Tordesillas , controlled the Brazilian coasts. The brief union between the two during the reign of Felipe II until Portuguese independence makes the American continent a practical monopoly of the Spanish Austrias. In the following centuries, Spain and Portugal will advance their control of the lands not yet colonized.
As in the north, it will be the definitive fall of the Spanish Empire that will precipitate events in an exciting way. The emergence of the pleiad of current states, inheritors in part of the old colonial provinces, will be plagued by internal conflicts, unthinkable unions today and wars of conquest against the still native populations. By the end of the century, there will be few border conflicts to fight, and South America will have taken its final form.
In America two independent Neolithic Revolutions took place in Mesoamerica around the year 8000 a. C and in the Andean region of South America in 3500 a. C Between 4000 and 3000 a. C. the great Indo-American linguistic groups were formed.
In America important civilizations developed, such as Caral, the Anasazi, the Pueblo Indians, Quimbaya, Nazca, Chimú, Chavín, Paracas, Moche, Huari, Lima, Zapoteca, Mixteca, Totonaca, Tolteca, Olmeca and Chibcha, and the corresponding advanced civilizations to the empires of Teotihuacan, Tiahuanaco, Maya, Azteca and Inca, among many others.
Some historians maintain that the Viking colonization in America was the first from the current European territory.
From the arrival of Christopher Columbus, the introduction of new diseases such as smallpox produced a demographic catastrophe that some researchers estimate even the death of 93% of the population. Within this framework, some European empires conquered and colonized a part of the continent occupied by already established cultures and civilizations.
The European conquest was rejected in various parts of the continent. Several native peoples successfully resisted European invasions of vast territories, and maintained dominance over them until the end of the 19th century.
Republics of towns of African origin that managed to flee from slavery to which they had been reduced by the Portuguese also settled in South America.
After three centuries of colonial rule, the American peoples began to declare their independence claiming their right to organize as national states, militarily confronting the European powers, thus opening the world process of decolonization. The first to do so were the Thirteen British Colonies through the American Revolution that gave rise to the United States, in 1776.
Starting in 1831, the peoples under Spanish rule carried out a Spanish-American War of Independence, continental in scope, which led, after complex processes, to the emergence of several nations: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Ecuador , El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela . In 1844 and 1898 the process would be completed with the independence of the Dominican Republic and Cuba, respectively.
In 1816 a huge independent South American state was formed, called Gran Colombia, and which encompassed the territories of present-day Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador and areas of Brazil, Costa Rica, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru. The Republic was dissolved in 1830.
In 1822 Brazil was organized as an independent monarchy, the Brazilian Empire, with the dissolution of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve, until 1889 when the monarchy was abolished to establish a republic. For its part, the United States and Great Britain negotiated in 1867 an independence process with restrictions for Canada, which was consolidated during the 20th century.
In the second half of the 20th century, due to the pressure of the decolonization process promoted by the United Nations, several Caribbean peoples obtained their independence from Great Britain: Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Granada, Jamaica, Saint Christopher and Nieves, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago. Simultaneously, Suriname became independent from the Netherlands and Guyana from the United Kingdom. Today, there are still several towns and territories under British, French, Dutch and Danish colonial rule.
After their emancipation, the countries of the Americas have followed a disparate development among themselves. During the 19th century, the United States established itself as a world power and replaced Europe as the dominant power in the region.
The 20th century saw the difference in the development of North America with respect to the rest of the continent increase. Thus, while the United States became a world superpower since the middle of the century, Latin America and the Caribbean became the region with the greatest social inequality in the world.
Among the most important political events in the contemporary history of America are the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), the Cold War (1945-1991) that frontally opposed the United States and the Soviet Union and led to a succession of dictatorships in America Latina, and the Cuban Revolution (1959). In the 1960s and 1970s the emergence of rock and roll, as a result of the fusion of African-American cultures and their worldwide spread, and of radical youth movements, led to profound cultural change. Starting in the 1980s, the concentration of companies and universities and the technological innovations produced in the Silicon Valley in California made the region the hub of the Information Society.
Since the end of the 19th century, the countries of the Americas have sought to form a system of Pan American unity, resulting in the creation of the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948. Furthermore, since the end of the 20th century, the countries of the Americas have intensified efforts to integrate subregionally in various instances such as UNASUR, Mercosur (Southern Common Market), the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), the Central American Integration System (SICA), the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America - Trade Treaty de los Pueblos (ALBA) and Caricom (Caribbean Community).
Malamud underlines in the introduction that his work has the mission of discussing the meaning of the discovery and conquest of America; analyze the impact that the construction of colonial societies had on the peoples that inhabited the American continent; to value the weight that the Castilian pactist theories of the XVI and the liberal ideas of 1812 had in the conformation of the political ideas of the Latin American republics during the XIX; and demonstrate that the American set does not accept simplifications.
The book begins by offering in 15 pages a brief overview of the cultures existing in the American continent before 1492. It is followed by four extensive chapters that narrate the discovery of the New World, the conquest, colonization and evangelization. The following explains how colonial societies were built, how the imperial complex was managed, and what were the economic dynamics that occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries. Later, the colonizing experiences in the American continent of other European powers are narrated (Portuguese in Brazil, English in the Thirteen Colonies, French in Canada ...). The study of the colonial era closes with a chapter on the social, political and economic dynamics of the time of the Bourbon reforms. Then, it is explained how the United States, Haiti, Latin America and Brazil came to independence. In the third part, contemporary history is narrated. It begins with the explanation of the political and economic consequences of independence, the evolution of the oligarchic regimes is presented, and it ends with the exposition of how the oligarchic system pericytized. Finally, in a short chapter he reviews how the transition from autarky to economic liberalization, and from authoritarianism to democracy. and it ends with the exposition of how the oligarchic system pericytized. Finally, in a short chapter he reviews how the transition from autarky to economic liberalization, and from authoritarianism to democracy. and it ends with the exposition of how the oligarchic system pericytized. Finally, in a brief chapter he reviews how the transition from autarky to economic liberalization, and from authoritarianism to democracy.
Without a doubt, the book will be used by university students for having the virtue of being synthetic. Specialized readers will miss a deeper discussion of the evolution of the 20th century and, above all, an explanation of the historical dynamics of the United States and Canada during the 19th and 20th centuries. Perhaps, if the work had been presented as a History of Latin America instead of as a History of America , this problem would have been eliminated.
The compulsory subject covers the period from the independence revolutions to the present day. It is a wide and complex period of time from the perspective of the history of America, initially characterized by the formation of the new national states and their insertion in the world. In this way, the subject program is divided into three parts. The first dedicated to the study of independence processes, beginning in the United States and Haiti and ending in the Spanish and Brazilian empires. The second, characterized by the process of formation of the new republics and the maturation of what has come to be called the "oligarchic system" (beginning of the 19th century until after the First World War). Finally the third part focuses on political systems, economic and social developments since the Great Depression and ends in the first decade of the XXI century. In this way we find a series of events and phenomena of great density, but which, as they approach our present, are more difficult to assess objectively. These characteristics could create difficulties for the student if he tried to approach the subject without precise orientations or pretending to carry out an exclusively memory study. The teachers of the teaching team, assisted by the teacher-tutors, will fulfill the function of dispensing these didactic and methodological guidelines. But generally speaking, it's not about cumulatively incorporating national stories,
This form of study concentrates the student's interest in historical processes rather than in the isolated fact or in the study of a particular character, allowing events to be integrated into larger groups, and relating causes and consequences. A special emphasis will also be placed on comparison, not only between the different Latin American countries, but also with other international settings. The evaluation of the student's level will attend not only to the degree of positive information that they possess, but also to the demonstrated capacity to understand and interpret it from the historical reality itself.
The course begins with the outbreak of the independence processes in the American continent and the political and ideological changes that they introduced in the hemispheric reality. Knowledge of Modern American History is essential to successfully complete the course. The History of Contemporary America is directly related to the subject "Democracy and dictatorship in Latin America since the Cuban Revolution" and also to Contemporary History II and History of the Current World.