The course is a historical and a topical approach to the international relations of Latin America. 1) The first section is divided analytically in two: 1.1. The first and briefest is an introduction and an overview to the main theories of international relations: realism, liberalism and constructivism. Theory will provide a common language for the class and patterns to order and interpret reality. 1.2. The second part is historical. We will cover the history of the international system and the history of Latin America, bridging both processes looking for divergences and convergences. We will review the patterns of insertion of Latin America in the broader global system and the influences of the system in the region. We begin at the so called “discovery” and journey through colonial times and the national organization period. Then we go into the XX century and the impact of the World Wars and the Great Depression. After that, the Cold War as the organizing paradigm in world affairs and how it was anything but Cold in Latin America. We then move to the end of the Cold War, the “New World order” and the rise of the neoliberal order. The last period we cover is from 2001 onwards. We will explore the transformations in American foreign policy, the rise of new powers in the world and the backlash against the Washington consensus in the region, the new left and the rise of the merging countries. We conclude by at the same time looking back and ahead. At this stage we will be able to unearth recurrent patterns and identify breaks with the past, always looking for its causes and implications. 2) The second part of the program is topical. We will analyze here the main issues in the international agenda and how are they perceived from Latin America. How are they incorporated into the regional agenda? How and to what extent are they taken into account in the national foreign policies? We will cover a wide array of topics such as poverty, inequality, climate change, terrorism, trafficking, drugs, energy and natural resources. What are the areas of coincidence between the global and the Latin American agenda? What does Latin America bring into the international agenda? We will be examining the mutual interaction and the interdependent effects in the context of globalization.