The Panama Canal set a new course for the modern development of Central America. Cutting a convenient path from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, it hastened the currents of trade and migration that were already reshaping the Western hemisphere. Yet the waterway was built at considerable cost to a way of life that had characterized the region for centuries. In Erased, Marixa Lasso recovers the history of the Panamanian cities and towns that once formed the backbone of the republic.

Marixa Lasso is former director and current researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones Históricas, Antropológicas y Culturales in Panama. She is the author of the books Myths of Harmony: Race and Republicanism during the Age of Revolution and Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal, the latter of which received the Friedrich Katz Prize of the American Historical Association for the best book in Latin American and Caribbean History and the William M. LeoGrande award for the best book on U.S.-Latin American relations in 2018–2019. She is author as well of several book chapters and articles for journals such as the American Historical Review, Environmental History and Diplomatic History. Professor Lasso has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Humanities Center, the Social Science Research Council, Fulbright and the Wenner Gren Foundation and the Hutchins Center at Harvard. She is the Tinker Visiting Professor in spring 2025 at University of Texas. Austin.

Livestream Here: tinyurl.com/3725lec