2024-2025 Catalog

POLS 225 Central American Revolutions and Guerrilla Struggles

Beginning in the late 1970s, revolutionary movements would shake Central American societies

and shape U.S. foreign policy with direct military and covert intervention in the region. Often

framed as the final battleground of the so-called Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet

Union, scholars of Central America prefer to emphasize the complexity of internal social and

political forces and the U.S.’s continual efforts to undermine national sovereignties and control

anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian movements in its “back yard.” This course will allow

students to examine the historical formation of three distinct militarized and antidemocratic

states, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and the revolutionary movements that sought to

radically engage in social transformations between the 1970s and 1990s. Principal themes of the

course include: capitalist development and structural inequalities; revolutionary ideologies;

organizational development and objectives of Central American revolutions; US interventions;

social transformation and change; and lasting impacts of revolutions.

Credits

4 units

Cross Listed Courses

LLAS 270

Core Requirements Met

  • Regional Focus