<p>i agree with tickle, i think you’d be better served to get an MA (or even a PhD) in latin american/caribbean history and just make your particular thesis about diplomatic history. for latin american history, since it’s a relatively small field in comparison to US or european history, it’s often better to find the regional match over the thematic one. finding both fits would be best, but not necessarily easy. you could do an MA in world history, or whatever else the department calls their terminal MA degrees, while still writing your thesis about latin american/caribbean diplomatic history.</p>
<p>utexas-austin has a strong latin american history program, and a few people do foreign policy/diplomacy history there. john c. brown does cuban history, mexican history, and international relations. neil foley studies mexico/US borderlands and relations. frank guridy studies cuba and US presence in latin america and the caribbean. there are many others there that may also intersect with some of your interests.</p>
<p>umichigan-ann arbor is another top school. paulina alberto studies 20th century intellectual and cultural history of the african diaspora. jesse hoffnung-garskof studies international migration, transnationalism, and social movements. rebecca scott (who is FANTASTIC) does cuba, slavery, and the law, often in comparison with the US. richard turits studies haiti and the hispanic caribbean, nondemocratic regimes, peasantries, and US interventionism.</p>
<p>nyu is another strong program. ada ferrer studies intellectual history in cuba and haiti in the 18th and 19th century. greg grandin studies guatemala and US presence in central america during the cold war. barbara weinstein studies brazil, labor history, regionalism and nationalism. not as good a fit as greg, but she’s a truly talented academic so i’m mentioning her anyway.</p>
<p>at ucla, william summerhill does political and economic history of the southern cone (brazil, argentina, chile). james wilkie studies latin america and globalization in the 20th century.</p>
<p>and i’d like to throw in a plug for my future alma mater, u pittsburgh, but the latin americanists there don’t really seem to do a lot of diplomatic history. check them out anyway in case something else catches your fancy, because they’ve got a pretty strong latin american/caribbean program.</p>
<p>umm… what else? u chicago offers latin american history and caribbean/atlantic history as two separate fields of study, and with reason. the only caribbeanists there are english caribbeanists, and the latin americanists are very mexico/brazil-centric. if you’re looking to do the spanish caribbean, or any part of latin america other than mexico or brazil, it’s probably not the best place for you.</p>
<p>indiana-bloomington is very, very good, especially for nicaragua and the western caribbean (caribbean coasts of venezuela and colombia in particular).</p>
<p>wisconsin-madison is always a good contender for latin american history. francisco scarano does puerto rican history, james sweet does african diaspora, steve stern does latin american social history, and florencia mallon studies chilean gender and nationalism.</p>
<p>look into duke and UNC, but be a bit wary. i’ve heard less than glowing reviews of duke’s latin american program, mostly because the faculty is “a dysfunctional family at best.” ouch. UNC is a great, great place to study cuba because louis perez jr is there and he, along with rebecca scott, is THE GUY for cuban history. he’s not really inclined to advise on anything other than cuba, though, even in a comparative sense (which is his prerogative since he’s at the top of his field), so if you don’t want to study cuba, i’d save yourself the application fee.</p>
<p>uhhh… i can’t think of much else off the top of my head. i know my list is short on ivy leagues, but a lot of them just don’t fit. princeton’s a great school, and jeremy adelman is a solid professor (economic history of argentina, though he’s advised on the caribbean before) but i don’t know how many LAist/caribbeanist students the school is taking anymore since he’s really the only one there and they’ve cut the size of their incoming class dramatically this year.</p>
<p>harvard has one colonial mexicanist and one british caribbeanist, so i don’t think they fit the bill for you either.</p>
<p>cornell had a few people, but mary roldan (colombia, violence, drugs, national politics) is leaving the department for another school in the fall. ray craib does chilean labor history, so not really a fit there either.</p>
<p>yale… tends to churn out students, in the MA and the PhD program, as quickly as possible and without a ton of individual attention. gil joseph is there. he studies central america and mexico, and US-latin american relations, so you may want to work with him. but i have my own reasons for being a bit down on yale (and no, i didn’t apply there and get rejected).</p>
<p>upenn… ann farnsworth-alvear is there. colombia, labor history, gender history. she’s fantastic and her work is great, but she’s the only one there and it’s not really what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>columbia. big on mexico and brazil, but the department overall doesn’t really expend a lot of resources on its latin american program. i don’t think they have any caribbeanists, and since you mentioned latin america/caribbean in your OP, i’m assuming having at least someone there studying the caribbean is important.</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>there is my giant post. hope that helps. feel free to pm me with more questions if you have any.</p>
I was kind of shocked when I looked my list of potential schools… only one Ivy League and I wasn’t even sure if it’s even a good fit… Sorry, family.</p>