Three research questions and analytical frameworks

Latin American History

As in other nations around the world, economic development and social justice tend to go hand in Latin America, as is evidenced by recent events in three countries.

With the recent transference of power in Cuba from Fidel Castro to his brother Raul, there are signs that restrictions that previously limited the freedom of Cubans under Fidel's autocratic regime will be lifted. Cubans are now able to purchase such items as mobile phones, DVD players, and computers. It remains to be seen whether Raul will manage to open up new economic possibilities for his country, which continues to struggle with poverty on a massive scale.

In recent years, Brazil's Growth Acceleration Program has led to positive growth in the country's economy. Whereas a decade ago, the economic situation was a lot more delicate and contingent on the global market, today, the country seems nearly immune from fluctuations generated by the economic crisis in the United States. As one of the largest nations in the Latin American world, it also has one of the most democratic forms of government.

In Argentina, rising inflation has been a major problem in recent years. In the 1990s, the country's currency - the peso - had been trading at nearly one to one with the dollar. A major economic crisis hit the country in the year 2001. The government's response to this problem has been to deprecate the peso - as a means of maintaining the competitiveness of the country's economy while simultaneously discouraging imports. As a result of this problem, inflation continues to rise. At the same time, the country, like Brazil, is experiencing economic growth.

Part II, Question a the Escola Tropicalista Bahiana began in the year 1865 when about a dozen doctors in northeastern Brazil began to meet in order to discuss pertinent medical issues of the era. At the meetings, the doctors would discuss not only their own significant cases, but flesh out their own plans for research and the latest advances in medical science. This led to the formation of the Escola Tropicalista Bahiana, which would come to signify one of the most successful scientific enterprises in 19th century Latin America. Every two weeks, the doctors would meet to speak about unusual cases they had come across, pertinent medical texts that had recently been published, the latest advances in such emerging fields as microscopy and parasitology, and how all of these topics might be of particular interest to the Brazilian nation. The point of the doctors' meetings was to generate original research that would aid the development of medicine in Brazil. While this may not sound controversial now, at the time it was, as Brazilian scientists and doctors would typically attempt to conform to whatever had recently been discovered in Western Europe without trying to generate any of their own original contributions to their fields. The Escola Tropicalista Bahiana, on the other hand, would attempt to merge tropical medicine with the latest European advances, in an effort to producing medical advances that catered particularly to the denizens of northeastern Brazil. In doing so, they effectively challenged the dominance of Rio de Janeiro in the medical field. Since they had no official medical base, they utilized the charity hospital in Salvador, where they began teaching and publishing an influential medical journal. They were thus able to make a powerful and effective contribution to medicine from a uniquely Latin American - and specifically Brazilian - perspective.

Part II, Question B