Historias - the SECOLAS podcast

In March 2026, we mark the 50th anniversary of the 1976 military coup in Argentina. To reflect on its significance within a broader regional frame, we speak with historians Sebastián Carassai and Kevin Coleman, editors of Coups d’État in Cold War Latin America, 1964–1982. Their work adopts a comparative approach across cases such as Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Central America, examining...

En este episodio escuchamos a la historiadora Valeria Coronel, directora de doctorado de historia andina de FLACSO. Una tremenda que ofrece un pantallazo de la historia y la historiografía del Ecuador y de America Latina desde fines del siglo XIX hasta el presente.

In this final episode, Renata and Dustin examine the resolution and consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They speak with Michelle Paranzino, Carlos Alzugaray, James Hershberg, Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Peter Kornbluh, William LeoGrande, Michelle Chase, Michael Bustamante, and Aaron Coy Moulton.

In this episode, Renata and Dustin examine the Cuban Missile Crisis and its moments of greatest danger. They speak with scholars including Carlos Alzugaray Treto, Michelle Chase, James Hershberg, Peter Kornbluh,Michelle Parazino, and Lars Schoultz.

In this episode, Dustin and Renata discuss the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the ways that the invasion set the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis. They speak with scholars including Michael Bustamante, Jonathan C. Brown, Lillian Guerra, Michelle Chase, and William LeoGrande.

In this episode, Renata Keller and Dustin Walcher look at the global repercussions of the Cuban Revolution, analyzing Cuba’s relations with the United States, Latin America, the Soviet Union, and the Global South. They speak to scholars including Lillian Guerra, Lorraine Bayard de Volo, William M. LeoGrande, Jonathan C. Brown, Aaron Coy Moulton, James Hershberg, Eric Gettig, Michelle Chase, and La...

In this episode, Dustin and Renata explore the many changes that the Cuban Revolution brought to the island, as well as Cubans’reactions to those changes. We speak withMichelle Chase, Lillian Guerra, Eric Getting, and Michael Bustamante.

In this episode, Dustin and Renata explain their goal for the audiodocumentary: to teach listeners about the Cuban context of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They speak with Lars Schoultz, Lillian Guerra, William LeoGrande, Carlos Alzugaray, Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Michael Bustamante, and Michelle Chase about the deep history of Cuba’s struggles for sovereignty that formed the backdrop of theCuban Revo...

Carmen Soliz and Edward Brudney interview sociologist and activist Caitlin Schroering about their new book: Global Solidarities Against Water Grabbing.

Comenzamos el nuevo ciclo de Historias con una entrevista al historiador Daniel Mendiola, autor de The Mosquito Confederation: A Borderlands History of Colonial Central America. Este libro, centrado en el siglo XVIII, invita a repensar la construcción de los imperios y las fronteras tanto en el pasado como en el presente. Mendiola es doctor en Historia Latinoamericana por la Universidad de Houston...

In this episode, historians Aldo Marchesi, Amanda Waterhouse, and Thomas Field examine the role of U.S. aid in Latin America, helping us place this institution’s history in context—particularly in light of Trump’s recent move to restrict or cut foreign assistance to the region.

En este episodio, Edward Brudney y Carmen Soliz conversan con los historiadores Fabricio Prado y Alex Borucki sobre sus aportes a la historia del Río de la Plata. Discutimos cómo su trabajo desafió el nacionalismo metodológico y sus aportes a los estudios de redes sociales y comerciales transimperiales. Alex Borucki es autor de From Shipmates to Soldiers: Emerging Black Identities in the Río de la...

Julia Sarreal conversa con Edward Brudney y Carmen Soliz sobre Yerba Mate: The Drink that Shaped a Nation, el primer libro que explora la historia de esta icónica bebida en Argentina desde la época precolonial hasta la actualidad. Sarreal narra cómo el mate pasó de ser una tradición indígena a un símbolo omnipresente en la colonia, su asociación con los sectores rurales y populares en el siglo XIX...

Edward Brudney y Carmen Soliz entrevistan a la historiadora Margarita Fajardo para hablar sobre su innovador libro The World That Latin America Created: The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era. En su obra, Fajardo revela cómo un grupo de intelectuales transformaron la economía del desarrollo y redefinieron el papel de América Latina en el escenario global.

Los historiadores Lina Britto y Ricardo López Pedreros -editores de dos volúmenes, Historias de soledad e Historias de perplejidad- reflexionan sobre las trayectorias personales y académicas que impulsaron la producción de esta obra, las condiciones de producción de conocimiento en Estados Unidos y América Latina, y la importancia de utilizar Colombia como lente para mirar a las Américas y al mund...

Several scholars, including Joanne Rappaport, Sinclair Thomson, Gavin O'Toole, and Bret Gustafson, have praised Brooke Larson's book as a monumental, meticulously documented history of Indigenous education in twentieth-century Bolivia.

El Estado Rural estudia la política interna de una comunidad de la sierra central peruana, desde principios del siglo XX, cuando el estado peruano reconoció la legalidad de las comunidades indígenas, hasta finales del conflicto armado en la década de 1990. Este largo arco temporal permite al autor analizar un siglo de intervenciones estatales y mercantiles en el campo y sus repercusiones en la vid...

In this episode, historian Paulina Alberto joins us to talk about her award-winning book Black Legend, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Celebrated with the 2023 Bolton-Johnson Prize for Best Book in Latin American History and the 2023 Southern Cone Section Award for Best Book in the Social Sciences, Black Legend has quickly become a must-read. Tune in to discover the groundbreaking...

Rafael Archondo and Isabel Siles’ Sobre un barril de pólvora, is a comprehensive review of the former president’s life, Hernan Siles Zuazo (1913-1996). He was one of the founding members of the nationalist revolutionary party (MNR) in 1942. He was elected two times as president (1956-1960 and 1982-1985), and his role was vital to consolidate revolutionary achievements like Agrarian Reform or socia...

Dr. Sarah Hines explores residents of Cochabamba struggle for access to water that is linked to broader historical processes such as the dispossession and dismantling of indigenous communities in the 19th century, the Bolivian revolution of 1952, and the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s. Her book argues that the Cochabambinos defeated privatization in the Water War in 2000 because they defende...

Dr. Nicole Pacino is an associate professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Nicole has studied the effects of the policies of the 1952 Revolution on rural health, particularly on indigenous women. Her work shows how maternity was a central axis of the nationalist policies of the MNR that strived to create/consolidate the nation.

Elizabeth Shesko argues that conscription evolved into a pact between the state and society. It was not only imposed from above but also embraced from below because it provided a space for Bolivians across divides of education, ethnicity, and social class to negotiate their relationships with each other and the state. Shesko contends that state formation built around military service has been char...

Kevin Young traces the history of Bolivian struggles over mineral and hydrocarbon resources, highlighting the complex legacies of Bolivia’s 1952 revolution. His work also revolves around the various economic projects that party officials, political party leaders, activists, urban factory workers, university students, and mine workers proposed to address a key question for Bolivians: How to overcom...

Dr. Natalie Kimball analyzes the politics of abortion and reproductive rights in Bolivia from the mid-twentieth century to the present. They focus on the cities of La Paz and El Alto, exploring this open secret that brings to light the complex relationship of Bolivian nationalist, military, neoliberal, and leftist governments with women’s reproductive rights.

Elena McGrath explores how culture and material conditions create revolutionary conditions. In this interview, Elena helps us understand how the lives of mine workers and their families changed after the revolution. Elena demonstrates that the revolution brought the mine workers and their families an unprecedented sense of citizenship that did not limit to the right to vote but also to the right t...