Department of History, UC Santa Barbara

UCSB History Associates presents A Banned Book in Common (Apr 9, 14, 19, 2026)
2026-04-19 17:30 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Santa Barbara Public Library, Faulkner Gallery, 40 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara., University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Next two books in the series of A Banned Book in Common are
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943), by Betty Smith, and
The Hate U Give (2017), by Angie Thomas
A unique event organized by UCSB’s History Associates, we discuss books that have been targets of book banners.
Click here to RSVP and to see the flyer

Talk by Mateo Jarquin, "Managaua 1979," Monday, April 20, 4 pm, HSSB 4041
2026-04-20 16:00 - 17:30 | HSSB 4041, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, United States
Professor Mateo Jarquin of Chapman University will be giving a talk titled “Managua 1979: International and Transnational Origins of the Cold War’s Last Great Revolution.”

After the Cuban Revolution, armed movements across Latin America embraced violent struggle as a path to social transformation. Yet only one managed to seize power: Nicaragua’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). Their unlikely victory in July 1979 gripped the world’s attention and ignited a major hotspot in the late Cold War.
How did it happen? Drawing from his book The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History, Mateo Jarquín recounts the fall of the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. The story unfolds not only inside Nicaragua and in Washington but across Latin America, where the rebel FSLN was embedded in a regional web of state and non‑state actors conspiring to isolate Somoza, challenge U.S. influence, and ultimately bring about the last major left‑wing revolution of the 20th century.
Mateo Jarquín is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Master’s Program in War, Diplomacy, and Society at Chapman University. His research explores the intersection of democracy, revolutions, and international relations in modern Latin America. He is the author of The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History (University of North Carolina Press, 2024), which received the 2025 Michael H. Hunt Prize in International History from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Articles from this research agenda have appeared in journals such as Cold War History and The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History. Alongside his historical work, he writes regularly about contemporary Central American politics. Originally from Nicaragua, Jarquín holds a PhD from Harvard University and a BA from Grinnell College.

The event is sponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and International History and the UCSB Department of History. It is free and open to the public.
