Understanding and Teaching Modern Latin America

Understanding and Teaching Modern Latin America combines engaging, clearly written overviews of key themes with fresh and well-tested classroom approaches for teaching today’s students about a complex historical subject. This volume comprises an introduction and sixteen chapters divided into three parts, including a reflection from a senior professor about the ways in which teaching Latin American history have changed over the past few decades, as public calls to internationalize high school and college students have led to the growth of world history courses. Chapters explore a wide range of themes—including slavery, revolution, race, labor, gender, and the environment. This volume also offers innovative and practical teaching strategies, from using maps to incorporating food, to enrich any K–16 curriculum. By presenting multiple viewpoints, this book functions as a springboard for instructors hoping to encourage students to negotiate the various contradictions in historical study.

Sharika D. Crawford is a historian of modern Latin America and the circum-Caribbean. Her book The Last Turtlemen of the Caribbean: Waterscapes of Labor, Conservation, and Boundary Making received an honorable mention by the Association of Caribbean Historians 2021 Elsa Goveia Book Prize Committee. She is the former Higher Education chair of the AP World History Modern Test Development Committee.
Kari E. Zimmerman is an associate professor of history and the director of Latin American and Caribbean studies at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota. Focusing on gender and the economy in nineteenth-century Brazil, her scholarship explores the gendered histories of African slavery, female entrepreneurship, and international patents. Her teaching and community engagement have been honored by the McKnight Foundation: Youthprise, University Advocates for Women and Equity, and UST Student Diversity and Inclusion Services.