Abstract:

A History of Indigenous Latin America, Aymara to Zapatistas is a recent textbook by René Harder Horst, published in 2020 by Routledge Press as a resource to teach the five hundred year history of Native Latin America within a typical university semester through hybrid-based instruction.

Learning Indigenous history shows a new perspective of Latin America. Indigenous people have played a central role in shaping its history, and exploring their participation helps us learn about the entire continent in greater depth. From the people who first met Columbus, to recent Native presidents, Indigenous people have influenced and shaped the continent. This book outlines their influence and participation in that history, employing recent instructional strategies to better communicate with our students. Prior to this publication, there were no textbooks that taught the entire Indigenous history and communicated to students the broad relevance of the Indigenous experience to the continent. As we explain, in its first two years our textbook is already being used at five universities and is drawing graduate students to our own university program; this presentation reviews the experience and results of its use in the classroom. Educational websites and schools around the country have already requested to feature this textbook, so it has attracted international attention.

How can instructors teach over five hundred years of Indigenous histories in a university semester without relying on specific case studies? Advancements in web tools and course management systems allow for the content organization to best connect the importance Indigenous heritage with students in vastly different contexts. Indigenous history. Web tools connect Indigenous perspectives with students to help them remember content longer.

This textbook for the first time combines both Colonial or Modern periods into one book. Breaking the history into fifty-year segments is an innovative way to allow students to focus on how Indigenous peoples shaped Latin America.

Keywords:

Indigenous history, Paraguay, Pedagogy, Imaging Techniques, Linked documents, Publication techniques.