Assistant Professor of History

Matthew Rothwell studies the influence of the Chinese Revolution in Latin America and the history of communism in Latin America more generally. His research uses oral history interviews and archival sources from Mexico, Peru and Bolivia to understand the ways in which activists, intellectuals and guerrilla fighters across the globe found meaning in communist ideology and through their actions shaped the meanings that international communism would hold for their contemporaries and for later generations. This includes, but is not limited to, investigating how international networks functioned, the processes of idea transmission, and the ways in which local actors adapted Marxist ideas to local conditions that differed tremendously from the conditions in which those ideas were born. His work stands at the intersection of Latin American social history, the intellectual history of the global 1960s and the history of Chinese foreign relations.

Fluent in Spanish and Finnish, as well as his native English, he has lived in Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and Finland. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2009. He regularly teaches classes which situate Latin America within the global context of the Cold War and the 1960s, as well as surveys of Latin American, Chinese and global history.

Click here to visit Dr. Rothwell's personal website: matthewrothwell.net.

Phone:  465-1224

Office:   LA3035