In this week's reading the chapters both talk about Nationalism in Latin America. The definition of Nationalism in the book Problems in Modern Latin American History, by James Wood, is the identification of a large group of individuals with a nation. In the book Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, by John Chasteen, it says that nationalists were often urban , middle class, mixed race, or recent immigrants. It is said that Nationalism is one of the most widespread and influential ideologies in modern world history.

In this week's reading for James Wood, entitled "Nationalism", it talks about Nationalism and how it affected Latin American countries. An example of how Nationalism affected Latin America is the Cuban war for independence from Spain, which happened from 1868 to 1898. Jose Marti was a apostle of Cuban Independence, in which he earned this title from many years of fighting for this cause. Jose had died on the battlefield fighting for Cuba's independence in 1895. Due to his belief about Cuba being independent, Jose was imprisoned and was also exiled from Cuba. Jose Marti's most famous essay was published in newspapers in both New York and Mexico City in January of 1891. In this essay he talks about the blindness of the previous Latin American governments to what was actually going on in the that region. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 had posed a revolutionary challenge to the neocolonial system. Francisco Madero had led a campaign to overthrow the government, which at the time was a positivist dictatorship ran by Porforio Diaz. This revolution lasted for a decade from 1910 to 1920 and it was very bloody. The Revolution had many twists and turns, but it gradually became institutionalized in the 1920's. With that being said it created space for a variety of nationalistic expressions to appear. An example of this would be Mexican