History 8A-B are general survey courses designed to introduce students to major themes in Latin American history. This course encompasses the crisis of colonial rule in the late eighteenth century, independence wars in the early nineteenth century, and the birth and transformations of independent republics from Mexico through the Caribbean to the Andes and the Southern Cone, into the twenty-first century. The course emphasizes the diversity of the Latin American experience with special attention to political processes and social transformations including revolutions, slavery and its legacies, and the struggle for citizenship and democracy, with particular attention to the working classes and ingenious movements.