Religious Culture in Modern Mexico

As Martin Nesvig correctly suggests in his introduction to this provocative collection, North American scholars are sometimes reluctant to incorporate religion in analyzing modern Mexico. Historians and students alike will benefit from this latest addition to William Beezley’s and Colin MacLachlan’s series Jaguar Books on Latin America, which commendably has added more than 30 titles to scholarly books on the region. Collectively the authors address, often in imaginative ways, the breadth and depth of religiosity in Mexico and its consequences. Chapters explore major controversial themes in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, among them revising the standard view of Liberalism and religion to instead stressing the spiritual and social resurgence of Catholicism; revealing several important instances of prominent Liberals’ personal devotion to Catholicism, flavored by a socially conscious bent; arguing that religion is so deeply imbedded in the cultural fabric of Mexico that it cannot be separated...