A Brief History of Post-Conquest Latin America - Part 8 The End of Cold War Politics

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 left-wing insurgencies.

The 1990s were a time of democracy and orthodox liberal economics. There were - and still are - lingering exceptions however, so we look at examples such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, as well as the Zapatista uprising in Mexico.

We begin however, by outlining the war between Argentina and Britain - an outlier in the wider trends of the region - but one which still holds a lot of importance to Argentines today.