The Latin American History Podcast

In the final episode of the series, we look at how Potosi declined from being the rich source of most of the world's silver, to a forgotten and impoverished place. We track the town through the late colonial era, the wars of independence, and the 20th century.

Today we discuss one of the greatest incidents in Potosi's history - the Great Mint Fraud. This story reads partially like a political investigative thriller, and partially like a mafia expose. It's effects will reverberate around the world, disrupting the global economy, and it will damage Potosi itself for decades.

Potosi was an archetypal mining boomtown, filled with hard-working and hard-living characters hoping to make their fortune, and attempting to drown out their tough and dangerous existence with wild parties while they waited. To get a sense of what it might have been like to live there, in today's episode we discuss the city's growth, its population - both rich and poor, and the escapades of some of its most outlandish resid...

In today's episode we zoom out and look at the astounding impact Potosi had on even the furthest flung reaches of the world. Among other things, its silver helped provoke dynastic regime change in China, wars in Iran, and a 500% increase in the price of bread in France. It helped create the golden age of piracy, globalisation, and the birth of the study of economics. It's no exaggeration to say that Potosi changed the cours...

In this episode we take a closer look at the mines themselves, as well as the ore refining industry which surrounded it. We examine the terrible toll it took on those who worked in these jobs, as well as who was actually doing this work, and who owned the mining enterprises. Along the way we discuss who the Spanish adapted and re-used a couple of existing Inca social systems.

It is hard to overstate the impact one lonely peak high up on the Bolivian altiplano had on world history - the silver which was dug from within it changed the world. It is however, largely forgotten today.

In this first part of a short series on the subject, I describe Potosi today using my observations from when I visited. It is a strange place, haunted by it's history and marked by poverty. Crumbling Spanish buildings hint at...

In the final part in our series on Brazil and World War 2, we look at what happened after war. We examine if the country achieved the geo-political, military and economic aims it had set out as its reason for participating, and how their involvement influenced the following decades of internal politics. We also discuss what life was like the soldiers of the Expeditionary Force themselves upon their return home - unfortunately the a...

Having looked at what the Brazilian soldiers and pilots did on foreign soil during the war, it's now time to turn our attention towards the impact the conflict had on the country itself. These impacts were many and varied. Today we look at blackouts, secret invasion plans, and the huge sacrifices made by the "rubber soldiers" - more of whom died in Brazil than of their compatriots doing the actual fighting.

Uniquely among Latin American nations, and often forgotten, the Brazilian army fought in WW2, sending troops to fight in Europe. The Smoking Cobras faced numerous challenges, but they proved themselves to be extraordinarily brave and held their own during their time fighting.

This is the first of a four part series on Brazil's experience of the Second World War. Today we look at the state of the military before they started ...

Today we have a special interview episode in which Stephanie Schmidt (Associate Professor in the department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University at Buffalo) tells us about her new book Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain.

The book examines a set of tragic stories which occurred in the years following the conquest of Mexico, involving the use of high-class indigenous children by missionaries to ai...

In the second part of our look at the Manila galleon trade we look at the people whose lives were impacted by it, and how this has affected the very genetics of Mexico and the Philippines. These people include convicts, Portuguese traders, Jews from Iberia escaping persecution, Japanese Samurai, and pirates from Britain and the Netherlands.

Although often forgotten, the Manila Galleon trade route between the Philippines and Mexico was hugely important to Latin America, Asia, and the rest of the world. For hundreds of years this trade across the Pacific helped drive globalisation and fund both Spain and China.

In today's episode we outline how the trade worked and the deep cultural influences it had on all those involved.

Today we finish of our overview series of Latin American history by looking at the region's most recent events. Among the subjects covered are the Washington Consensus, the Left Turn, populism and migration.

The fall of the Soviet Union sent shock waves around the world, and moved the global geopolitical situation into new territory. Having been a cold war battle ground, Latin America experienced this change as abruptly as anywhere.

Compounding things was the fact that this was coupled with a severe economic crisis, and so this episode we examine how these factors led to the end of most dictatorships, as well as the dampening of many l...

While many countries were experiencing left-wing insurgencies during the cold war decades, some were also coming under the rule of dictators. Of these, some waged 'dirty wars' on their populations to either combat the guerillas or stifle any chance of them emerging.

To finish our look at the cold war, we tie up some of the loose ends. We discuss a couple of exceptions to the dictatorship phenomenon - the so called 'perfe...

The Cold War period was one of turmoil in Latin America. Local political trends and outside involvement by superpowers fighting their global battle of ideologies combined to create social conflict waged by both left and right. In this episode we look at the insurgencies which swept the region. Some, like the one in Cuban would result in socialist governments. Others, like that of Colombia, resulted in prolonged civil war.

We begin t...

By 1900 the world had become truly globalised, and so Latin America was affected by the rise of the same competing ideologies as Europe and the USA. This was an the age of workers movements and nationalism, where the economic struggles caused by the Great Depression saw people look for alternatives to the established order.

Of course, these political ideas were adapted to the conditions of Latin America, and so they manifested thems...

Today we move northwards, to look at Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean during the immediate decades after independence from Spain.

We follow the Central American nation's on-off relationship with each other, and the rise of the USA. The later will lead to war with Mexico, and intervention to win independence for Spain's last remaining colonies, and an independent adventurer to invade Nicaragua on his own accord.