It's about 4 o'clock on Monday, the day before our flight to Panama, and I forgot to blog last week, so this is a little late. I came home on Sunday morning, and have pretty much just been eating lots of good food and trying to squeeze all my stuff into my 2 bags. After changing my mind a few times, I decided to leave my banjo in St. Louis. I think everyone would have gotten real sick of hearing the 5 songs I know over and over again, and I probably won't have much time/desire to practice new songs.
For the paper I'm writing for the history elective, I've found the Archivo Ricardo J. Alfaro online, which contains personal documents and correspondence between officials in Panama and the U.S., records of diplomatic documents btw the U.S. and Panama, and U.N. and OAS documents. But to view the documents you have to create an account, and for some reason when I try the error message "invalid token" comes up. I'm trying to figure out why that is right now.
At least I have a ton of material on US-Panama relations in the mid-20th century saved on my thumb drive and laptop to start reading. I'm also starting Lafaber's Inevitable Revolutions on the U.S. in Central America to get a broad context and ideas for more specific topics. Dr. Zoumaras recommended it, and I got a bunch of articles off JSTOR from Lafaber's bibliography. Lafaber doesn't include Panama in his group of Central American countries, which makes it an interesting place to start. I also have Major, Prize Possession: The United States and the Panama Canal, 1903-1979. Also a good source for an overview on the history of US-Panama relations.
So we'll see how the Archivos Alfaros works out. I'd really like to do a paper based on primary research, but I can always do a historiographic paper if I can't access primary documents.
Alright, I'm going to finish packing...I'll be at the airport in 12 hours!
No comments:
Post a Comment