GEOG 332 LATIN AMERICA   List of Topics Receiving Special Emphasis in Dr. Dillman's Course

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Introduction and the Physical Environment

• Middle America ant its crossroads significance
• The hurricane as an element of regional personality
• Life zones in the Andes and elsewhere
• The environmental impact of el nino

West Indies

• The four voyages of Columbus: routes, discoveries, and consequences
• Europeans as agents of cultural and environmental change in the New World
• Mesoamerica and the Central Andes as pre-Columbian culture hearths
• Sugar, slavery, and the plantation in the West Indies
• Colonialism in the Caribbean
• Mainland-Rimland culture spheres in Middle America
• Puerto Rico's future: the 51st state?
• Tourism: the irritant industry
• "off-shore" industry in the Caribbean

Mainland Middle America

• The Latin American city: heart of economic, political, social, and cultural development
• Mexico City: the dominant metropolis
• Undocumented immigrants, maquiladoras, twin cities, and the U.S.-Mexico border zone: a world apart
• The five "nations" of Mexico
• Guatemala: Indians, volcanoes, earthquakes
• The insurgent state in Central America and Peru
• Tropical deforestation in Central America
• Panama Canal: interocean link

South America

• The geography of cocaine in south America
• The problems of latifundismo and minifundismo
• The problems and promise of Amazonia
• Brasilia: forward capital and growth pole for development
• Chile: South America's growth center on the Pacific Rim
• Transformation of the Argentine Pampas
• Economic integration schemes in Middle and South America