Episode 120: Mila Burns on the South American Cold War

Mila Burns is associate professor of Latin American and Latino studies at Lehman College and of history at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is also the associate director at the Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies. Dr. Burns’s most recent book is Dictatorship Across Borders: Brazil, Chile, and the South American Cold War published by the University of North Carolina Press. The book reshapes conventional understandings of the South American Cold War by emphasizing Brazil’s proactive role in the Chilean coup. Drawing on testimonies of Brazilian political exiles and newly declassified sources, Dr. Burns demonstrates that the conflict was not solely U.S.-driven, but involved regional actors, and that both repression and resistance operated across national boundaries. She talks about the book in a lively conversation with Richard Relkin, good friend of the podcast and Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing at Lehman College.

For more about Próspera, the Honduran city referenced in the episode, see this New York Times article.

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