Lecture: “Latin America After the Spanish Conquest: From Cortés to García Márquez”

What made the discovery and conquest of the New World by Europeans possible?

How did a few hundred conquistadors manage to defeat vast indigenous empires?

How did the colonization of South America differ from that of North America, and why are most Latin Americans descendants of Indigenous peoples?

What is unique about the syncretic religions of Latin America?

How did national identity and the struggle for independence emerge in Latin America?

What is “magical realism,” and how did Latin America, in its hundred years of solitude, influence global culture?