The most difficult text we read this semester– certainly the longest– is Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, which narrates the political vicissitudes of the imaginary country of Costaguana (remember the significance of that name?). In the aftermath of independence and the decades that followed, when a new liberal-nationalist order consolidated, foreign capital increasingly began to control local politics. The era, which most historians argue extends from roughly 1880-1930, is properly known as the age of neocolonialism. In contrast to sub-Saharan Africa, which only fully decolonized in the 1970s (with South Africa, after a fashion, as the major exception) Latin America nations achieved sovereignty by the earlier part of the 19th century. Paradoxically, the “postcolonial” condition Latin Americans found themselves in gave way to a new effort on the part of European nations– particularly the UK– to take up where Spain had left off. The difference, however, lay in the methods for asserting hegemony: rather than caravels and arbalists, foreign powers, represented by private corporations, used money as a means of control. For those who would explore this phenomenon more deeply, the classic text is Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America. For those who are concerned solely with acquiring enough information to do well on the final exam, read on.
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